The fact that you can only do a little is no excuse for doing nothing. John le Carre More Quotes by John le Carre More Quotes From John le Carre When you're my age, you have the feeling sometimes that you're seeing the show come round again. John le Carre agefeelingssometimes Why did I desert Labour? Total bloody disillusionment. The party was a corpse. It had no ideology, it became detached, old, spineless and needed to go. John le Carre disillusionmentdesertparty The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was the work of a wayward imagination brought to the end of its tether by political disgust and personal confusion. Fifty years on, I don't associate the book with anything that ever happened to me, save for one wordless encounter at London airport when a worn-out, middle-aged military kind of man in a stained raincoat slammed a handful of mixed foreign change on to the bar and in gritty Irish accents ordered himself as much Scotch as it would buy. In that moment, Alec Leamas was born. Or so my memory, not always a reliable informant, tells me. John le Carre militarymemoriesbook When it's going well [writing] goes terribly fast. It isn't at all surprising to write a chapter in a day, which for me is about twenty-two pages. When it's going badly, it isn't really going badly; it's just the beginning. John le Carre twentieswritingtwo On one hand we go like hell for every terror cell we can find, we penetrate it, we destroy it. On the other hand, there is a much bigger need for a political solution. John le Carre politicalcellshands The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America's Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist. John le Carre religiouswarideas I've got more than one string to my bow, and I thought I'd give this one a twang. John le Carre stringsbowsgiving I was the British spy who had come out of the woodwork and told it how it really was, and anything I said to the contrary only enforced the myth. And since I was writing for a public hooked on Bond and desperate for the antidote, the myth stuck. John le Carre desperatespywriting Never trade a secret, you'll always get the short end of the bargain. John le Carre tradeendssecret I mean, you can't be less ruthless than the opposition simply because your government's policy is benevolent, can you now? John le Carre ruthlessgovernmentmean Blackmail is more effective than bribery. John le Carre blackmailbribery Yet it's not for want of future that I'm here, he thought. It's for want of a present. John le Carre want It's a principle of mine to come into the story as late as possible, and to tell it as fast as you can. John le Carre principlesstorieswriting You can't make war against terror. Terror is a technique of battle. It's a tactic that has been employed since time immemorial. You can conduct clandestine action against terrorists, and that must be done. John le Carre techniquebattlewar Only Esmeralda was not weeping. Instead she wore that wooden look that whites mistake for churlishenss or indifference. Woodrew knew it was neither. It was familiarity. This how real life is constituted, it said. This is grief and hatred and people hacked to death. This is the everyday we have known since we were born and you Wazungu have not. John le Carre griefrealmistake Each my book feels like my last book. And then I think, like a dedicated alcoholic, that one more won't do me any harm. John le Carre dedicatedbookthinking A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world. John le Carre I began writing when I was still in the British Foreign Service, and it was then understood that even if you wrote about butterfly collecting, you used another name. John le Carre nameserviceyoubutterfly The creation of George Smiley, the retired spy recalled to hunt for just such a high-ranking mole in 'Tinker, Tailor,' was extremely personal. I borrowed elements of people I admired and invested them in this mythical character. I'm such a fluent, specious person now, but I was an extremely awkward fellow in those days. John le Carre personcreationcharacterpeople I write and walk and swim and drink. John le Carre writewalkdrinkswim
