John le Carré

Quotes

1. “We blew up the photographs and there they were: two gallantry and four campaign. Aleks Polyakov was a war veteran and he'd never told a soul in seven years. Oh I was excited! ‘Toby,’ I said, ‘You just listen to me for a moment, you Hungarian poison dwarf. This is one of the occasions when ego has finally got the better of cover.’”

2. 

   In due course Smiley noticed that the secret was out, and he was still mystified by the speed with which that had happened. He supposed Bill had boasted to someone, perhaps Bland. Ann had broken her own rules. Bill was Circus and he was Set — her word for family and ramifications. On either count he would be out of bounds.

3. 

   “Aleksey Aleksandrovich Polyakov was a six-cylinder Karla-trained hood if ever I saw one, and they wouldn't even listen to me!”

4. 

   "I even put it to Control: we should take the opposition's cover stories more seriously, I said. The more identities a man has, the more they express the person they conceal."

5. 

   Now whole vistas of deceit opened before Guillam. His friends, his loves, even the Circus itself, joined and re-formed in endless patterns of intrigue. A line of Mendel's came back to him, dropped two nights ago as they drank beer in some glum suburban pub: “Cheer up, Peter, old son. Jesus Christ only had twelve, you know, and one of them was a double.”

6. 

   That one won't crack, though, Mendel decided with approval; one of your flabby oak trees, Smiley was. Think you could blow him over with one puff but when it comes to the storm he's the only one left standing at the end of it.

7. 

   “It's all neon lights and Sodom. All over the world beastly people are making our time into nothing…It was a good time, a real time. Englishmen could be proud then. Let them be proud now.”

   “That's not quite up to me, Connie.”

   “Poor loves. Trained to Empire, trained to rule the waves. All gone. All taken away. Bye-bye world. You're the last, George, you and Bill… 'If it's bad, don't come back. Promise? I'm an old leopard and I'm too old to change my spots. I want to remember you all as you were. Lovely, lovely boys.”

8. 

   “So Karla is fireproof?" Guillam asked finally. "He can't be bought and he can't be beaten?”

   “Karla's pulled the Circus inside out; that much I understand, so do you,” Smiley said quietly. “Karla is not fireproof because he's a fanatic. And one day, if I have anything to do with it, that lack of moderation will be his downfall.”

9. 

   “Percy's door opens and somebody walks in. We'll call him Gerald, it's just a name…Perhaps he doesn't say anything till they're outside the building, because Gerald is very much a field man, he doesn't like to talk with walls and telephones around."

10. 

    Across from Porteous were Bill's Russians, Nick de Silsky and his boyfriend Kaspar. They couldn't smile and for all Guillam knew they couldn't read either because they had no papers in front of them; they were the only ones who hadn't. They sat with their four thick hands on the table as if somebody was holding a gun behind them, and they just watched him with their four brown eyes.

11. 

    Tinkler Tailor Soldier Spy (miniseries)

12. 

    From not far away came Phil Porteous's purr: “The source is extremely secret, Peter. It may sound to you like ordinary flight information but it isn't that at all. It's ultra, ultra sensitive.”

    “Ah well, in that case I'll try to keep my mouth ultra shut,” said Guillam to Porteous, and while Porteous colored, Bill Haydon gave another schoolboy grin.