|
1b77d1e
|
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.
|
|
espionage
spy
|
John Le Carré |
|
31e5319
|
"This is a war," Lemas replied. "It's graphic and unpleasant because it's fought on a tiny scale, at close range; fought with a wastage of innocent life sometimes, I admit. But it's nothing, nothing at all besides other wars - the last or the next." --
|
|
war
spy
|
John le Carré |
|
b0d4d2b
|
Don't give it to them all at once, make them work for it. Confuse them with detail, leave things out, go back on your tracks. Be testy, be cussed, be difficult. Drink like a fish; don't give way on the ideology, they won't trust that. They want to deal with a man they've bought; they want the clash of opposites, Alec, not some half-cock convert.
|
|
lying-games
spy
|
John le Carré |
|
4bf1898
|
He was a secret agent, and still alive thanks to his exact attention to the detail of his profession.
|
|
spy
|
Ian Fleming |
|
330e5d9
|
A man who lives a part, not to others but alone, is exposed to obvious psychological dangers. In itself the practice of deception is not particularly exacting. It is a matter of experience, a professional expertise. It is a facility most of us can acquire. But while a confidence trickster, a play actor or a gambler can return from his performance to the ranks of his admirers, the secret agent enjoys no such relief. For him, deception is first a matter of self defense. He must protect himself not only from without, but from within, and against the most natural of impulses. Though he earn a fortune, his role may forbid him the purchase of a razor. Though he be erudite, it can befall him to mumble nothing but banalities. Though he be an affectionate husband and father, he must within all circumstances without himself from those with whom he should naturally confide. Aware of the overwhelming temptations which assail a man permanently isolated in his deceit, Limas resorted to the course which armed him best. Even when he was alone, he compelled himself to live with the personality he had assumed. It is said that Balzac on his deathbed inquired anxiously after the health and prosperity of characters he had created. Similarly, Limas, without relinquishing the power of invention, identified himself with what he had invented. The qualities he had exhibited to Fiedler: the restless uncertainty, the protective arrogance concealing shame were not approximations, but extensions of qualities he actually possessed. Hence, also, the slight dragging of the feet, the aspect of personal neglect, the indifference to food, and an increasing reliance on alcohol and tobacco. When alone, he remained faithful to these habits. He would even exaggerate them a little, mumbling to himself about the iniquities of his service. Only very rarely, as now, going to bed that evening, did he allow himself the dangerous luxury of admitting the great lie that he lived.
|
|
political
thriller
spy
|
John le Carré |
|
6007783
|
"There's no way out," he announced with satisfaction, "and no amount of wishful dreaming will produce one. The demon won't go back in its bottle, the face-off is for ever, the embrace gets tighter and the toys cleverer with every generation, and there's no such thing for either side as enough security. Not for the main players, not for the nasty little newcomers who each year run themselves up a suitcase bomb and join the club. We get tired of believing that, because we're human. We may even con ourselves into believing the threat has gone away. It never will. Never, never, never." "So, who'll save us then, Walt?" Barley asked. "You and Nedsky?" "Vanity, if anything will, which I doubt," Walter retorted. "No leader wants to go down in history as the ass who destroyed his country in an afternoon. And funk, I suppose. Most of our gallant politicians do have a narcissistic objection to suicide, thank God."
|
|
war
nuclear-weapons
spy
russia
|
John le Carré |
|
a395b0a
|
Some men will never be heroes, some heroes will never be men, he thought, with urgent acknowledgements to Joseph Conrad.
|
|
heroes
espionage
spy
|
John le Carré |
|
6c88bef
|
I could admire his skills, and be relieved when he was on my side in a fight. But for a rat to like the cat? That scenario ended only one way. With one dead rat.
|
|
spying
spy
fight
|
Maria V. Snyder |
|
333c475
|
"Right now, I couldn't have cared less if someone had waltzed across the room in a large flower costume with a sign saying GET YOUR BLACK TULIPS HERE. Every nerve in my body was on man-alert, screaming, "incoming!"
|
|
spies
lauren-willig
funny-and-random
spy
|
Lauren Willig |
|
a17929e
|
Afterwards Smiley always thought of that interview as a fan dance; a calculated progression of disclosures, each revealing different parts of a mysterious entity. Finally Steed-Asprey, who seemed to be Chairman, removed the last veil, and the truth stood before him in all its dazzling nakedness. He was being offered a post in what, for want of a better name, Steed-Asprey blushingly described as the Secret Service.
|
|
secret-service
spy
|
John le Carré |
|
8da532c
|
Amy wondered if Bonaparte could declare war on Miss Gwen alone without breaking his peace with England
|
|
lauren-willig
historical-fiction
spy
|
Lauren Willig |
|
e953c31
|
Ashe, Kiever, Peters; that was a progression in quality, in authority, which to Leamas was axiomatic of the hierarchy of an intelligence network. It was also, he suspected, a progression in ideology. Ashe, the mercenary, Kiever the fellow traveler, and now Peters, for whom the end and the means were identical.
|
|
intelligence
spy
ideology
|
John le Carré |
|
dbac892
|
Noriega wound up like a baseball pitcher on top of the bed and hurled the small gun, but was low and outside for a ball. His tight-fitting house dress was bunched up high on his chubby thighs, exposing olive drab underwear. I see London, I see France, I see a crazy dictator's underpants! Chase's thoughts raced.
|
|
fiction
espionage
panama
literary
thriller
spy
|
Cole Alpaugh |
|
b07e168
|
He went upstairs and opened the telegram; it was addressed to a department in the British Consulate, and the figures which followed had an ugly look like the lottery tickets that remained unsold on the last day of a draw. There was 2674 and then a string of five-figure numerals: 42811 79145 72312 59200 80947 62533 10605 and so on. It was his first telegram and he noticed that it was addressed from London. He was not even certain (so long ago his lesson seemed) that he could decode it, but he recognised a single group, 59200, which had an abrupt and monitory appearance as though Hawthorne that moment had come accusingly up the stairs. Gloomily he took down Lamb's 'Tales from Shakespeare' - how he had always detested Elia and the essay on Roast Pork. The first group of figures, he remembered, indicated the page, the line and the word with which the coding began. 'Dionysia, the wicked wife of Cleon,' he read, 'met with an end proportionable to her deserts'. He began to decode from 'deserts'. To his surprise something really did emerge. It was rather as though some strange inherited parrot had begun to speak.
|
|
decoding
spy
|
Graham Greene |
|
868d6ff
|
He knew he could worm his way beneath her defenses--he'd read every word of those diaries. He knew the one absolute way to fulfill her every dream. The problem was, could he do that to her? He didn't have to. He could turn about this moment and ride away. Yet that would mean leaving her forever.
|
|
sexy-book
royal-four
regency-romance
spy
|
Celeste Bradley |
|
ce39673
|
All defectors have a complex relationship with truth.
|
|
truth
spy
|
David Mitchell |
|
62662af
|
Painters, writers, musicians are lonely people. So are statesmen and admirals and generals. But then, I added to be fair, so are criminals and lunatics. Let's just say, not to be too flattering, that true individuals are lonely. -- Vivienne Michel
|
|
romance
bond
thriller
spy
crime
|
Ian Fleming |
|
9d051d2
|
Back in 1944 when people were normal and there was a world war on,' says Paul to his son, 'it was a serious thing to be a spy.
|
|
spy
|
Muriel Spark |
|
13108f6
|
International big business has made revolutions before now to safeguard its interests. At one time it made them ... in the name of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Now, with Socialism to fight, it makes them in the name of Law and Order and Sound Finance. Assassination? If an assassination is going to be good for business, then there will be an assassination.
|
|
capitalism
revolution
regime-change
self-interest
spy
big-business
betrayal
|
Eric Ambler |
|
13c2e2b
|
"It was if the devil himself had devised the perfect earthly torture for Lady Alicia Lawrence. "Now how will I occupy myself when I get to hell?"
|
|
romance
royal-four
snarky-quotes
regency-romance
historical-romance
spy
|
Celeste Bradley |
|
38dbc1a
|
It is said that men condemned to death are subject to sudden moments of elation; as if, like moths in the fire, their destruction were coincidental with attainment. Following directly upon his decision, Leamas was aware of a comparable sensation; relief, short-lived but consoling, sustained him for a time. It was followed by fear and hunger.
|
|
death
spy
|
John le Carré |
|
f7f052b
|
Stephen Maturin sipped his scalding coffee, the right Mocha berry, brought back from Arabia Felix in the pilgrim dhows, and considered. He was naturally a reserved and even a secretive man: his illegitimate birth (his father was an Irish officer in the service of His Most Catholic Majesty, his mother a Catalan lady) had to do with this; his activities in the cause of the liberation of Ireland had more; and his voluntary, gratuitous alliance with naval intelligence, undertaken with the sole aim of helping to defeat Bonaparte, whom he loathed with all his heart as a vile tyrant, a wicked cruel vulgar man, a destroyer of freedom and of nations, and as a betrayor of all that was good in the Revolution, had even more. Yet the power of keeping his mouth shut was innate; so perhaps was the integrity that made him one of the Admiralty's most valued secret agents, particularly in Catalonia - a calling very well disguised by his also being an active naval surgeon, as well as a natural philosopher of international renown, one whose name was familiar to all those who cared deeply about the extinct solitaire of Rodriguez (close cousin to the dodo), the great land tortoise Testudo aubreii of the Indian Ocean, or the habits of the African aardvark. Excellent agent though he was, he was burdened with a heart, a loving heart that had very nearly broken for a woman named Diana Villiers: she had preferred an American to him - a natural preference, since Mr. Johnson was a fine upstanding witty intelligent man, and very rich, whereas Stephen was a plain bastard at the best, sallow with odd pale eyes, sparse hair and meager limbs, and rather poor.
|
|
spy
|
Patrick O'Brian |
|
654dc1f
|
No amount of careful grooming seemed to erase their impression that he was actually a foul and frightening ogre. It was enough to give a fellow self-doubts.
|
|
romance
royal-four
regency-romance
spy
|
Celeste Bradley |