The writer John le Carre passed away on the 12th of December 2020 leaving a legacy of spy novels that not only up there with the genre but some of the most iconic books in the English Language with novels like Tinker, Tailor, Solider Spy and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
Both of which have been adapted for television the first was done in the 1970’s series which had two actor’s which would go onto play iconic roles in sci-fi franchises Alec Guinness Star Wars and Patrick Stewart Star Trek on opposite sides.
While The Spy who Came in from the Cold stared the late great Richard Burton.
Book Quote, posts normally taken from just one book, this time it is divided into two sections. The first is quotes from his books as normal. Besides this their will be quotes from outside his literary works.
Book quotes by John le Carre
“The more identities a man has, the more they express the person they conceal.”
John le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
“Do you know what love is? I’ll tell you: it is whatever you can still betray.”
John le Carré, The Looking Glass War
“The fact that you can only do a little is no excuse for doing nothing.”
John le Carré, A Most Wanted Man
“There are moments which are made up of too much stuff for them to be lived at the time they occur.”
John le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
“Survival…is an infinite capacity for suspicion.”
John le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
“It’s the oldest question of all, George. Who can spy on the spies?”
John le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
“It is also the pardonable vanity of lonely people everywhere to assume that they have no counterparts.”
John le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy
“I have a theory which I suspect is rather immoral,’ Smiley went on, more lightly. ‘Each of us has only a quantum of compassion. That if we lavish our concern on every stray cat, we never get to the centre of things.”
John le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
“This is a war,” Lemas replied. “It’s graphic and unpleasant because it’s fought on a tiny scale, at close range; fought with a wastage of innocent life sometimes, I admit. But it’s nothing, nothing at all besides other wars – the last or the next.”
John le Carré, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
“We have to live without sympathy, don’t we? That’s impossible of course. We act it to one another, all this hardness; but we aren’t like that really, I mean…one can’t be out in the cold all the time; one has to come in from the cold…d’you see what I mean?”
John le Carré, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
“Tessa distinguished absolutely between pain observed and pain shared. Pain observed is journalistic pain. It’s diplomatic pain. It’s television pain, over as soon as you switch off your beastly set. Those who watch suffering and do nothing about it, in her book, were little better than those who inflicted it. They were the bad Samaritans.”
John le Carré, The Constant Gardener
“It is said that men condemned to death are subject to sudden moments of elation; as if, like moths in the fire, their destruction were coincidental with attainment.”
John le Carré, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
Personal Quotes by John le Carre
“The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous”
John le Carré
“A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.”
John le Carré
“The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat’s mat is a story.”
John le Carré
“Unfortunately it is the weak who destroy the strong.”
John le Carré
“Our power knows no limits, yet we cannot find food for a starving child, or a home for a refugee. Our knowledge is without measure and we build the weapons that will destroy us. We live on the edge of ourselves, terrified of the darkness within. We have harmed, corrupted and ruined, we have made mistakes and deceived.”
John le Carré
“Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes”
John le Carré
“After all, if you make your enemy look like a fool, you lose the justification for engaging him.”
John le Carré
“To possess another language, Charlemagne tells us, is to possess another soul. German is such a language. Once you have it in your head, you can go there anytime, you can close the door, you have a refuge.”
John le Carré
“Ideologies have no heart of their own. They’re the whores and angels of our striving selves.”
John le Carré
“Jesus Christ only had twelve, you know, and one of them was a double.”
John le Carré
“Love is whatever you can still betray.
John le Carré
Betrayal can only happen if you love.”
“What do you think spies are: priests, saints, and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists, and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives. Do you think they sit like monks in London balancing the rights and wrongs?”
John le Carré
They were 24 of the Greatest Quotes by Author John le Carre was yours amongst if not tell use what is your favourite quote by this great writer.
Or if you want to check out more book quotes check the link here.
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Above all Keep Safe and Treat People Fairly
Mark