British author (1931- )
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 CARRÉ
"The United States of America Has Gone Mad", 2003
Give a man a car of his own and he leaves humility and common sense behind him in the garage.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
Call for the Dead
In the hands of politicians grand designs achieve nothing but new forms of the old misery.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
I've never been able to write a book without one very strong character in my rucksack.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
interview, The Paris Review, summer 1997
By repetition, each lie becomes an irreversible fact upon which other lies are constructed.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
Absolute Friends
Home's where you go when you run out of homes.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
The Honourable Schoolboy
What else has a journalist to do these days, after all, but report life's miseries?
JOHN LE CARRÉ
The Honourable Schoolboy
It is also the pardonable vanity of lonely people everywhere to assume that they have no counterparts.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
The Honourable Schoolboy
Survival ... is an infinite capacity for suspicion.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
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
Sometimes we have to do a thing in order to find out the reason for it. Sometimes our actions are questions, not answers.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
A Perfect Spy
God is in his Heaven and the first night was a wow.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Each of us has only a quantum of compassion ... if we lavish our concern on every stray cat, we never get to the centre of things.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
There is a big difference between fighting the cold war and fighting radical Islam. The rules have changed and we haven't.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
radio interview, The Book Show, November 19, 2008
A committee is an animal with four back legs.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
There is a terrible alienation in the ordinary man between what he is being told and what he secretly believes.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
"John le Carre: My Frustration with Britain", BBC News, May 12, 2013
The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
attributed, Bright Words for Dark Days
In itself, the practice of deception is not particularly exacting; it is a matter of experience, of professional expertise, it is a facility most of us can acquire.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
A dead man is the worst enemy alive ... You can't alter his power over you. You can't alter what you love or owe. And it's too late to ask him for his absolution. He has beaten you all ways.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
Our Game
A good writer can watch a cat pad across the street and know what it is to be pounced upon by a Bengal tiger.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
attributed, The Twilight and Other Zones