The fact that you can only do a little is no excuse for doing nothing.
Tessa distinguished absolutely between pain observed and pain shared. Pain observed is journalistic pain. It’s diplomatic pain. It’s television pain, over as soon as you switch off your beastly set. T...
Smiley was not opposed to social distinctions but he liked to make his own.
Never confess, my friend, he advised drowsily, clasping Melik’s hand. If you confess, they will keep you there forever.
Merridew might not have been the slenderest of men or the tallest. But he had grip, he had cunning and like many fat men he had unexpected resources of indignation which he was able to turn on like a...
Leamas’ departure caused only a ripple on the water; with other winds and the changing of the seasons it was soon forgotten.
It’s an old illness you suffer from, Mr. Smiley, she continued, taking a cigarette from the box; and I have seen many victims of it. The mind becomes separated from the body; it thinks without reality...
It's the oldest question of all, George. Who can spy on the spies?
It is said that men condemned to death are subject to sudden moments of elation; as if, like moths in the fire, their destruction were coincidental with attainment.
In a civilized country you can never tell.
Dash it all, she’s an actress! Don’t take her so seriously. Actors don’t have opinions, my dear chap, still less do actresses. They have moods. Fads. Poses. Twenty-four-hour passions. There’s a lot wr...
Bogus Oxford men he could deal with, just as in his time he had known classics masters who had no Greek and parsons who had no divinity. Such men, confronted with proof of their deception, broke down...
Ashe was typical of that stratum of mankind which conducts its human relationships according to a principle of challenge and response. Where there was softness, he would advance; where he found resist...
After a lifetime of living by his wits and his considerable memory, he had given himself full time to the profession of forgetting.
What woman has ever stopped by a want of information? She felt. And despised him for not acting in accordance with her feelings.
It's necessary to understand what real intelligence work is. It will never cease. It's absolutely essential that we have it. At its best, it is simply the left arm of healthy governmental curiosity. I...
When the truth catches up with you, don’t be a hero, run.
There are moments that are made up of too much stuff for them to be lived at the time they occur.
The row of villas which lines Western Avenue is like a row of pink graves in a field of grey; an architectural image of middle age. Their uniformity is the discipline of growing old, of dying without...
Sometimes we have to do a thing in order to find out the reason for it. Sometimes our actions are questions, not answers.