John le Carré

Quotes

1. "If I couldn't get out, if there was any fumble after I'd met Stevcek, if I had to go underground, I must get the one word to him even if I had to go to Prague and chalk it on the Embassy door…Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor. Alleline was Tinker, Haydon was Tailor, Bland was Soldier and Toby Esterhase was Poorman. We dropped Sailor because it rhymed with Tailor. You were Beggarman," Jim said.

2. 

   Witchcraft No. 4 was an immensely technical Soviet Foreign Service appreciation of the advantages and disadvantages of negotiating with a weakened American president. The conclusion, on balance, was that by throwing the President a bone for his own electorate, the Soviet Union could buy useful concessions.

3. 

   “George is like a swift,” Ann had once told Haydon in his hearing. “He cuts down his body temperature till it's the same as the environment. Then he doesn't lose energy adjusting.”

4. 

   “I want to put a thesis to you, Toby. A notion about what's going on. May I?...You don't have to speak at all,” Smiley said. “There's no risk to listening, is there?”

   “Maybe.”

5. 

   'It is the business of agent runners to turn themselves into legends,' Smiley began. “They do this first to impress their agents. Later they try it out on their colleagues and in my personal experience make rare asses of themselves in consequence.”

6. 

   “Control's been toiling through personal dossiers of old Circus folk heroes, sniffing out the dirt, who was pink, who was a queen. Making a study of all our failures: and for why? Because we've got a success on our hands…Get away from him, George. Death's a bore. Cut the cord, move down a few floors. Join the proles.”

7. 

   “George, you been talking to the wrong guys.”

   “One of us has,” Smiley agreed pleasantly. “That's for sure.”

8. 

   “All power corrupts but some must govern and in that case Brother Lacon will reluctantly scramble to the top of the heap.”

9. 

   "As to the identity of the source - well that's a big, big mystery at this stage, but so it should be. Forgive me if I'm a little wide of the mark here and there but I've only the file to go by."

   The mention of a file, the first indication that Smiley might be acting in some official capacity, produced in Esterhase a discernible response…an expression of shrewd familiarity, as if Toby was trying to indicate that he too had read the file, whatever file it was, and entirely shared Smiley's conclusions.

10. 

    “We're losing our livelihood. Our self-respect. We've had enough.” Alleline took back the report and jammed it under his arm.

    “And like everyone who's had enough,” said Control, as Alleline noisily left the room, “he wants more.”

11. 

    Haydon also took it for granted that secret services were the only real measure of a nation's political health, the only real expression of its subconscious.

12. 

    Then he saw her: her disreputable car shunting towards him down the lane marked "Buses Only" and Ann at the wheel staring the wrong way. Saw her get out, leaving the indicator winking, and walk into the station to inquire — tall and puckish, extraordinarily beautiful, essentially another man's woman.