John le Carré

Quotes

1. The Superintendent called softly to the trees, where his men stood among their blacked-out cars like a next generation waiting for its turn.

2. 

   But Lacon was talking, not listening: "How's Ann?" he asked vaguely, at the window, stretching his forearms on the sill. "With you and so forth, I trust? Not roaming, is she? God, I hate autumn."

   "Fine, thank you. How's—" He struggled without success to remember the name of Lacon's wife.

   "Abandoned me, dammit. Ran off with her pesky riding instructor, blast her. Left me with the children. The girls are farmed out to boarding-schools, thank God." Leaning over his hands, Lacon was staring up at the lightening sky. "Is that Orion up there, stuck like a golf ball between the chimney pots?" he asked.

3. 

   It's like putting all your money on black, thought Guillam, staring out of the window of the café: everything you've got in the world, your wife, your unborn child. Then waiting, hour by hour, for the croupier to spin the wheel.

   He had known Berlin when it was the world capital of the Cold War, when every crossing point from East to West had the tenseness of a major surgical operation.

4. 

   The plane's descent—and the promise of the renewed chase restored him. There are two Karlas, he reasoned, remembering again the stoic face...There is Karla the professional, so self-possessed that he could allow, if need be, ten years for an operation to bear fruit: in Bill Haydon's case, twenty; Karla the old spy, the pragmatist, ready to trade a dozen losses for one great win.

   And there is this other Karla, Karla of the human heart after all, of the one great love, the Karla flawed by humanity. I should not be deterred if, in order to defend his weakness, he resorts to the methods of his trade.

5. 

   Toby had a lifelong faith in mail vans; stole them wherever he went, saying nobody noticed or remembered them.

6. 

   "So what's your name, George? Sherlock Holmes dogging his poor old Moriarty? Captain Ahab chasing his big white whale? Who are you?"

   Smiley did not reply.

   "Wish I had an enemy, I must say," Enderby remarked, turning a few pages. "Been looking for one for donkey's years. Haven't I, Sam?"

   "Night and day, Chief," Sam Collins agreed heartily, and sent his master a confiding grin.

7. 

   Smiley's People (TV miniseries)

8. 

   On Karla has descended the curse of Smiley's compassion; on Smiley the curse of Karla's fanaticism. I have destroyed him with the weapons I abhorred, and they are his. We have crossed each other's frontiers, we are the no-men of this no-man's-land.

9. 

   "Balls, the lot of it. It's death, that's what I'm suffering from. The systematic encroachment of the big D. Is that booze you're toting in that bag?"

   "Yes. Yes, it is," said Smiley.

   "Goody. Let's have lots. How's the demon Ann?"

   On the draining-board, amid a permanent pile of washing-up, he found two glasses, and half filled them.

   "Flourishing, I gather," he replied.

That’s all the quotes.

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