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1ebb7e4
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For Heaven's sake, Adrian, do you think Intelligence consists of unassailable philosophical truths? Does every priest have to prove that Christ was born on Christmas Day?
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John le Carré |
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31558ec
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It was like feeding a small child. You couldn't over load the spoon.
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John le Carré |
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2b91149
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George, this is history," Lacon protested weakly. "This is not today."
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John le Carré |
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c225183
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Think I'll just buff up the silver,' he announced, loud enough for her to hear and do something about him if she wanted.
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John le Carré |
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f0c5046
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Over them, in a swaying, muddy mist, hung the flies, snoring on a single note.
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John le Carré |
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46e2db0
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si quelque chose peut nous sauver, ce dont je doute, ce sera la vanite (...) aucun chef d'etat ne souhaite passer a la posterite comme etant le tare qui a aneanti son pays en un apres-midi. Et puis la trouille, peut-etre. Dieu soit loue! la plupart de nos beaux politiciens ont une aversion narcissique pour l'auto-destruction. (chapitre 5)
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John le Carré |
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c2a4fb1
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Les experts sont des fanatiques. Ils ne resolvent rien! Ils sont a la solde du systeme qui les emploie. Ils le perpetuent. Quand nous nous ferons torturer, ce sera par des experts. Quand nous serons pendus, ce sera par des experts. (...) Quand le monde sera detruit, ce ne sera pas par des fous, mais par de sages experts et par l'ignorance incommensurable des bureaucrates. (chapitre 10)
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John le Carré |
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23cb55f
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By the by, he is a virgin, about eight feet tall, and built by the same firm that did Stonehenge. Do not be alarmed.
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John le Carré |
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8711ecb
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The Party knows more about us than we know ourselves,' the woman replied.
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John le Carré |
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171bdaf
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It was the most monotonous day of my life," he replied without a second's hesitation. Then his rigid face broke and re-formed itself into the best smile ever, so that for a moment he really did look as if he had slipped through the bars of whatever confined him. "As a matter of fact, I thought you quite excellent," he said. This time she did not object to his choice of adjective. "Will you crash the car now, please, Jose? This will do me fi..
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John le Carré |
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12a6ac9
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Only adults had nervous breakdowns in those days, so the methods of survival for boys who refused to join the system were animal cunning, "internal immigration" as the Germans call it, or simply getting the hell out. I practised the first two, then opted for the third and took myself to Switzerland."
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John le Carré |
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3f60244
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Alec, what do you believe in? Don't laugh-tell me.' She waited and at last he said: 'I believe an eleven bus will take me to Hammersmith. I don't believe it's driven by Father Christmas.
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John le Carré |
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a8b26d8
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I'm a European, Peter. If I had a mission - if I was ever aware of one beyond our business with the enemy, it was to Europe. If I was heartless, I was heartless for Europe. If I had an unattainable ideal, it was of leading Europe out of her darkness towards a new age of reason. I have it still.
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John le Carré |
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170d0f8
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We colonise them, Your Graces, we corrupt them, we exploit them, we bomb them, sack their cities, ignore their culture, and confound them with the infinite variety of our religious sects. We are hideous not only in their sight, Monsignors, but in their nostrils as well--the stink of the round-eye is abhorrent to them and we're too thick even to know it. Yet when we have done our worst, and more than our worst, my sons, we have barely scratc..
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John le Carré |
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b211211
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The embassy's front door was of bulletproof steel lined with a veneer of English oak. You attained it by touching a button in a silent lift. The royal crest, in this air-conditioned stillness, suggested silicone and funeral parlours. The windows, like the doors, had been toughened to frustrate the Irish and tinted to frustrate the sun. Not a whisper of the real world penetrated. The silent traffic, cranes, shipping, old town and new town, t..
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John le Carré |
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7b82894
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I always say South America's the only place where you cut a gentleman his suit one week and see his statue wearing it the next.
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John le Carré |
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045c883
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And all right, it's Merrie bloody England, it's Laura bloody Ashley, it's ale and pasties and yo-ho for Cornwall, and tomorrow morning all these nice, sweet people will be back at each other's throats, screwing each other's wives and doing all the stuff the rest of the world does. But right now it's their National Day, and who's an ex-diplomat of all people to complain if the wrapping is prettier than what's inside?
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John le Carré |
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2d0cc25
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Good intelligence work, Control had always preached, was gradual and rested on a kind of gentleness.
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John le Carré |
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747eada
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Trouble with arms is, everyone thought they were recession-proof, but they're not. Iran-Iraq was an arms dealers' charter, and they thought it would never end. Since then it's been downhill all the way. Too many manufacturers chasing too few wars. Too much loose hardware being dumped on the market. Too much peace about and not enough hard currency. Our Dicky did a bit of the Serbo-Croat thing, of course - Croats via Athens, Serbs via Poland..
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John le Carré |
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4f211ef
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But gossip must see its characters in black and white, equip them with sins and motives easily conveyed in the shorthand of conversation.
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John le Carré |
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31683f4
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Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, dear man. In an imperfect world, I fear it's the best we can manage.
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John le Carré |
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db5e655
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Tomorrow was created yesterday.......And by the day before yesterday, too. TO IGNORE HISTORY IS TO IGNORE THE WOLF AT THE DOOR.
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John le Carré |
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d427829
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Walking a short way back along the embankment, almost to where the cross stood, Smiley took another look at the bridge, as if to establish whether anything had changed, but clearly it had not, and though the wind appeared a little stronger, the snow was still swirling in all directions.
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metaphor
pyrrhic-victory
smiley
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John le Carré |
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b2ab062
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She hardly cared. They wanted her. They knew her through and through; they knew her fragility and her plurality. And they still wanted her. They had stolen her in order to rescue her. After all her drifting, their straight line. After all her guilt and concealment, their acceptance. After all her words, their action, their abstemiousness, their clear-eyed zeal, their authenticity, their true allegiance, to fill the emptiness that had yawned..
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John le Carré |
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3900a02
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In capitalist America economic repression of the masses is institutionalised to a point which not even Lenin could have foreseen . . . "The"
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John le Carré |
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51f0a46
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Haydon was more than his model, he was his inspiration, the torch-bearer of a certain kind of English calling which - for the very reason that it was vague and understated and elusive - had made sense of Guillam's life till now.
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inspiration
elusiveness
vagueness
understatement
vague
englishmen
englishness
english
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John le Carré |
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430591e
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Dieter had a theory that was pure Faust. Thought alone was valueless. You must act for thought to become effective. He used to say that the greatest mistake man ever made was to distinguish between the mind and the body: an order does not exist if it is not obeyed.
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John le Carré |
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c1e8688
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You give the air of looking for someone, Sophie had said. But I think the missing person is yourself. Each
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John le Carré |
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8731698
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We cannot live in a bubble, Mr. Mundy. Comfortable ignorance is not a solution. In German student societies that I was not permitted to join, they made a toast: 'Better to be a salamander, and live in the fire.'" After" --
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John le Carré |
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e442728
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They would expect him to be afraid; for his service pursued traitors as the eye of God followed Cain across the desert.
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John le Carré |
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e81e2cc
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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: Theatrical Trailer (Courtesy of Focus
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John le Carré |
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f6306ea
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There comes a moment for all of us when our childhood ceases to be an excuse. In your case, I would say that, as with many English, the moment is somewhat delayed.
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englishmen
english
england
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John le Carré |
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561821f
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The easiest and cheapest trick for any leader is to take his country to war on false pretenses.
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John le Carré |
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afdadb7
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a night-time journey of the soul
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John le Carré |
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af8a56b
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We have to live without sympathy, don't we? That's impossible, of course. We act it to one another, all this hardness; but we aren't like that really. I mean ... one can't be out in the cold all the time; one has to come in from the cold
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John le Carré |
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7c87953
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Smiley. Short, fat, and of a quiet disposition, he appeared to spend a lot of money on really bad clothes, which hung about his squat frame like skin on a shrunken toad. Sawley, in fact, declared at the wedding that 'Sercomb was mated to a bullfrog in a sou'wester'. And Smiley, unaware of this description, had waddled down the aisle in search of the kiss that would turn him into a Prince. Was
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John le Carré |
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5125185
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Beyond the typhoon shelters, ships slid past them, lighted buildings on the march, and the junks hobbled in their wakes. Inland, the Island whined and clanged and throbbed, and the huge slums twinkled like jewel boxes opened by the deceptive beauty of the night. Presiding over them, glimpsed between the dipping finger of the masts, sat the black Peak, Victoria, her sodden face shrouded with moonlit skeins; the goddess, the freedom, the lure..
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John le Carré |
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8d600ed
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I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. --W. H. AUDEN
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John le Carré |
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6f5862c
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In every operation there is an above the line and a below the line. Above the line is what you do by the book. Below the line is how you do the job.
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spook-talk
spook-truth
spy-truth
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John le Carré |
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0d6ce8e
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A vida tem de ser paga. A vida e fazer-se o que tem de ser feito, mesmo que se morra por causa disso.
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John le Carré |
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dbbe985
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You killed a sentry, you know that?" "I guessed I had...What do they expect if they mount such a damn stupid operation? Why didn't they pull us both in at once? Why put all the lights out? If anything was over organized, that was." "I am afraid that as a nation we tend to over organize. Abroad that passes for efficiency."
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John le Carré |
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50d12ec
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The fact you can only do a little is no excuse for doing nothing.
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John le Carré |
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7fdaed8
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he wondered whether there was any love between human beings that did not rest upon some sort of self-delusion . . . .
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John le Carré |
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588b0d4
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They were ashamed of having pencils and paper. But it's no good just throwing them away, is it? That's what I learnt in the end. That's why I left the Party, I suppose." Smiley wanted to ask him how Fennan himself had felt, but Fennan was talking again. He had shared nothing with them, he had come to realize that. They were not men, but children, who dreamed of freedom-fires, gipsy music, and one world tomorrow, who rode on white horses acr..
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John le Carré |