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
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.
real self doubt
[My novels] introduce levels of intelligence ... moral doubt [and] self-doubt, which may not pertain [to real-world espionage].
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.
real expression political
...also took for granted that secret services were the only real measure of a nations political health, the only real expression of its subconscious.
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.
writing mountain impossible
There is no such thing as a secure writer: every novel is an impossible mountain.
humility men giving
Give a man a car of his own and he leaves humility and common sense behind him in the garage.
war huffing kind
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.
loyalty running book
I think that most of my books are part of some process of self-education, often about the places I go to. Most of all, they are about the peculiar tension between institutional loyalty and loyalty to oneself; the mystery of patriotism, for a Brit of my age and generation, where it runs, how it should be defined, what it's worth and what a corrupting force it can be when misapplied. All that stuff is just in me and it comes out in the characters. I don't mean to preach, but I know I do, and I'm a very flawed person. It's quite ridiculous.