Each of us has only a quantum of compassion. That if we lavish our concern on every stray cat, we never get to the centre of things. What do you think of i?
Dealing with beautiful women, Your Grace, Craw had warned, is like dealing with known criminals, and the lady you are about to solicit undoubtedly falls within that category.
As they crossed the fifty yards which separated the two checkpoints, Leamas was dimly aware of the new fortifications on the Eastern side of the wall—dragons’ teeth, observation towers, and double apr...
And in his customary corner, the awesome Rocker, Superintendent of Police, ex-Palestine, ex-Kenya, ex-Malaya, ex-Fiji, an implacable warhorse with a beer, one set of slightly reddened knuckles, and a...
A lot of people see doubt as legitimate philosophical posture. They think of themselves in the middle, whereas of course really, they're nowhere.
A committee is an animal with four back legs. But
. . he wondered whether there was any love between human beings that did not rest upon some sort of self-delusion . . . .
During the Cold War, we lived in coded times when it wasn't easy and there were shades of grey and ambiguity.
«Siempre hay docenas de razones para no hacer nada —en realidad era una de las frases con que pretendía excusar muchos de sus actos censurables—, y solo hay una razón para hacer algo, y esta razón es...
«Querrán hacer deducciones a pesar de usted —había dicho Control—. Debemos darles el material y permanecer escépticos respecto a sus conclusiones. Confiar en su inteligencia y en su presunción, en sus...
The striver in him knew that his first aim must be to rise in the system he dreamed of liberating.
Right…What do you do for a living, Smiley? After the war I was at Oxford for a bit. Teaching and research. I’m in London now. One of those clever coves, eh?
[Smiley contemplates graffiti:]'Punk is destructive. Society does not need it.' The assertion caused him a moment's indecision. 'Oh, but society does,' he wanted to reply; 'society is an association o...
You're history, Donohue. You think countries run the fucking world! Go back to fucking Sunday school. It's 'God save our multinational' they're singing these days.
W ciemności wszystkie koty są czarne...
When we can't hurt our enemies, we hurt our friends.
When two people have decided to go to bed with each other, what passes between them before the event is a matter of form rather than of content.
When God finished putting together Dicky Roper, He took a deep breath and shuddered a bit, then He ran up our Jonathan to restore the ecological balance.
What do you think spies are: priests, saints, and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists, and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to bright...
Western teaching institutions that refuse to acknowledge today's taboos are by definition subversive. Tell the new zealots of Washington that in the making of Israel a monstrous human crime was commit...