Those who are not with Mr. Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I’m dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam’s downfall – just not on Bush’s terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.

— John le Carré

John le Carré Quotes

It was a charming fantasy of romantics that the spies would stop spying, that political conflict would end and politicians would tell the truth. Unfortunately that has not been the case.

— John le Carré

The Cold War was over long before it was officially declared dead.

— John le Carré

As our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way.

— John le Carré

People are very secretive – secret even from themselves.

— John le Carré

The pharmaceutical corporations are engaged in the systematic corruption of the medical profession, country by country.

— John le Carré

Cheats, liars and criminals may resist every blandishment while respectable gentlemen have been moved to appalling treasons by watery cabbage in a departmental canteen.

— John le Carré

A good writer is an expert on nothing except himself. And on that subject, if he is wise, he holds his tongue.

— John le Carré

There is no such thing as a secure writer: every novel is an impossible mountain.

— John le Carré

I’m really a library man, or second-hand book man.

— John le Carré

I can’t think of anybody worse to live with.

— John le Carré

I move my lips when I read – I’m painfully slow – so I like really good English.

— John le Carré

Power expands through the distribution of secrecy.

— John le Carré

Smiley was soaked to the skin and God as a punishment had removed all taxis from the face of London.

— John le Carré

It is also the pardonable vanity of lonely people everywhere to assume that they have no counterparts.

— John le Carré

It’s the oldest question of all, George. Who can spy on the spies?

— John le Carré

Completing a book, it’s a little like having a baby.

— John le Carré

There was nothing dishonourable in not being blown about by every little modern wind. Better to have worth, to entrench, to be an oak of one’s own generation.

— John le Carré

Give a man a car of his own and he leaves humility and common sense behind him in the garage.

— John le Carré

For all the flailing and huffing and puffing, there is a kind of fatality about the process of war-making and the excuses we find for it, the consolation of belligerence in politics.

— John le Carré

When a problem threatens to engulf you, there’s nothing like irrelevant detail to keep your head above water.

— John le Carré
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