Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

John le Carré

Top 10 Best Quotes

“The more identities a man has, the more they express the person they conceal.”

“There are moments which are made up of too much stuff for them to be lived at the time they occur.”

“Survival...is an infinite capacity for suspicion.”

“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.”

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

“...in the hands of politicians grand designs achieve nothing but new forms of the old misery...”

“An artist is a bloke who can hold two fundamentally opposing views and still function:”

“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.”

“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.”

“Treason is very much a matter of habit, Smiley decided.”

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Book Keywords:

morality, compassion, choices, britain, treason, espionage, british, spy