#spies

I have no spy stories to tell, because I saw no spies. Nor did I understand, at that time, any opposition between American and Russian national interest. ↗

— Elia Kazan

#any #because #between #did #i

From infancy on, we are all spies; the shame is not this but that the secrets to be discovered are so paltry and few. ↗

— John Updike

#few #infancy #paltry #secrets #shame

A murderer is less loathsome to us than a spy. The murderer may have acted on a sudden mad impulse; he may be penitent and amend; but a spy is always a spy, night and day, in bed, at table, as he walks abroad; his vileness pervades every moment of his life ↗

— Honoré de Balzac

#life

I would have loved to have met some former spies, but they don't readily advertise themselves unless they're not living in Moscow, and even then. I'm sure I've met some without realizing it. ↗

— Jeremy Northam

#even #former #i #living #loved

Being shaken to death by a Hawaiian tourist look-alike was not how Arena imagined her death. ↗

— Lynn Blackmar

#adventure #espionage #spy #surfing #teenage-spies

Of course. Because at the Gallagher Academy, "precautions" usually equals "voluntary shock therapy. ↗

— Ally Carter

#precautions #spies #equality

George Smiley: [quoting an old letter from Bill Haydon about Jim Prideaux] He has that heavy quiet that commands. He's my other half. Between us we'd make one marvelous man. He asks nothing better than to be in my company or that of my wicked, divine friends, and I'm vastly tickled by the compliment. He's virgin, about eight foot tall, and built by the same firm that did Stonehenge ↗

— John le Carré

#british-intelligence #george-smiley #ian-bannon #ian-richardson #moles