John le Carre
John le Carre
David John Moore Cornwellis a British author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, he worked for the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service, and began writing novels under a pen name. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, became an international best-seller, and remains one of his best-known works. Following the success of this novel, he left MI6 to become a full-time author...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth19 October 1931
hands design misery
...in the hands of politicians grand designs achieve nothing but new forms of the old misery...
morality trouble british
I once heard someone say morality was method. Do you hold with that? I suppose you wouldn't. You would say that morality was vested in the aim, I expect. Difficult to know what one's aims are, that's the trouble, specially if you're British.
cat compassion spy
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.
doing-nothing facts littles
The fact that you can only do a little is no excuse for doing nothing.
war fighting differences
There is a big difference between fighting the cold war and fighting radical Islam. The rules have changed and we haven't.
election jerk western
Elections are a Western jerk-off.
firsts isolation problem
No problem exists in isolation, one must first reduce it to its basic components, then tackle each component in turn.
power-corrupts
All power corrupts but some must govern.
war mean names
The cold war provided the perfect excuse for Western governments to plunder and exploit the Third World in the name of freedom; to rig its elections, bribe its politicians, appoint its tyrants and, by every sophisticated means of persuasion and interference, stunt the emergence of young democracies in the name of democracy.
war long cold
The Cold War was over long before it was officially declared dead.
wind choices littles
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.
wise tongue experts
A good writer is an expert on nothing except himself. And on that subject, if he is wise, he holds his tongue.
spy
It's the oldest question of all, George. Who can spy on the spies?
lonely vanity people
It is also the pardonable vanity of lonely people everywhere to assume that they have no counterparts.