John le Carré - Secret Quotes

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It's part of a writer's profession, as it's part of a spy's profession, to prey on the community to which he's attached, to take away information - often in secret - and to translate that into intelligence for his masters.

John le Carré
I realised that now and forever more I was to be branded as the spy turned writer, rather than as a writer who, like scores of his kind, had done a stint in the secret world, and written about it.

John le Carré
What have I learned over the last 50 years? Come to think of it, not much. Just that the morals of the secret world are very like our own.

John le Carré
I think what gives my works whatever universality they have is that they use the metaphysical secret world to describe some realities of the overt world.

John le Carré
Never trade a secret, you'll always get the short end of the bargain.

John le Carré
As an intelligence officer in the guise of a junior diplomat at the British Embassy in Bonn, I was a secret to my colleagues, and much of the time to myself.

John le Carré
[Intelligence] brings to a strong government what it needs to know. It's the collection of information, a journalistic job, if you will, but done in secret. All the rest of it — intervention, destabilization, assassination, all that junk — is in my view not only anticonstitutional but unproductive and silly. You can never foresee the consequences.

John le Carré
But Smiley had a second reason which was fear, the secret fear that follows every professional to his grave.

John le Carré