“All men are born free: just not for long.”
― John le Carré, quote from A Murder of Quality
“It was from us they learnt the secret of life: that we grow old without growing wise. They realized that nothing happened when we grew up: no blinding light on the road to Damascus, no sudden feeling of maturity.”
― John le Carré, quote from A Murder of Quality
“I used to think it was clever to confuse comedy with tragedy. Now i wish i could distinguish them.”
― John le Carré, quote from A Murder of Quality
“He hated to be alone, but people bored him. Being alone was like being tired, but unable to sleep.”
― John le Carré, quote from A Murder of Quality
“Smiley himself was one of those solitaires who seem to have come into the world fully educated at the age of eighteen. Obscurity was his nature, as well as his profession. The byways of espionage are not populated by the brash and colourful adventurers of fiction. A man who, like Smiley, has lived and worked for years among his country's enemies learns only one prayer: that he may never, never be noticed. Assimilation is his highest aim, he learns to love the crowds who pass him in the street without a glance; he clings to them for his anonimity and his safety. His fear makes him servile - he could embrace the shoppers who jostle him in their impatience, and force him from the pavement. He could adore the officials, the police, the bus conductors, for the terse indifference of their attitudes. (ch. 9)”
― John le Carré, quote from A Murder of Quality
“Urgent equals ephemeral, and ephemeral equals unimportant.”
― John le Carré, quote from A Murder of Quality
“Only adults had nervous breakdowns in those days, so the methods of survival for boys who refused to join the system were animal cunning, “internal immigration” as the Germans call it, or simply getting the hell out. I practised the first two, then opted for the third and took myself to Switzerland.”
― John le Carré, quote from A Murder of Quality
“Smiley was not opposed to social distinctions but he liked to make his own.”
― John le Carré, quote from A Murder of Quality
“It was like feeding a small child. You couldn't over load the spoon.”
― John le Carré, quote from A Murder of Quality
“Shane was horrid to her, always sneering at her because she was honest and simple about the things she liked. Shane hated Stella—I think it was because Stella didn’t want to be a lady of quality. She was quite happy to be herself. That’s what really worried Shane. Shane likes people to compete so that she can make fools of them.”
― John le Carré, quote from A Murder of Quality
“He hated to be alone, but people bored him.”
― John le Carré, quote from A Murder of Quality
“There was a fellow called Smiley married Ann Sercomb, Lord Sawley’s cousin. Damned pretty girl, Ann was, and went and married this fellow. Some funny little beggar in the Civil Service with an OBE and a gold watch. Sawley was damned annoyed.”
― John le Carré, quote from A Murder of Quality
“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?”
― John le Carré, quote from A Murder of Quality
“He hated to be alone, but people bored him. Being alone was like being tired, but unable”
― John le Carré, quote from A Murder of Quality
John le Carré
Born place: in Poole, Dorset, England, The United Kingdom
Born date October 19, 1931
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“[He] understood the people in a new way...The people is not everyone who speaks our language, nor yet the elect marked by the fiery stamp of genius. Not by birth, not by the work of one's hands, not by the wings of education is one elected into the people.
But by one's inner self.
Everyone forges his inner self year after year.
One must try to temper, to cut, to polish one's soul so as to become a human being.
And thereby become a tiny particle of one's own people.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, quote from The First Circle
“Today’s computers use transistors. When used in computers, transistors basically function the same way relays do, but (as we’ll see) they’re much faster and much smaller and much quieter and use much less power and are much cheaper. Building an 8-Bit Adder still requires 144 transistors (more if you replace the ripple carry with a look-ahead carry), but the circuit is microscopic. Chapter 13. But What About Subtraction? After you’ve convinced yourself that relays can indeed be wired together to add binary numbers, you might ask, “But what about subtraction?” Rest assured that you’re not making a nuisance of yourself by asking questions like this; you’re actually being quite perceptive. Addition and subtraction complement each other in some ways, but the mechanics of the two operations are different. An addition marches consistently from the rightmost column of digits to the leftmost column. Each carry from one column is added to the next column. We don’t carry in subtraction, however; we borrow, and that involves an intrinsically different mechanism—a messy back-and-forth kind of thing. For example, let’s look at a typical borrow-laden subtraction”
― quote from Code
“Half the world's work's done by hopeless neurotics.”
― Pat Barker, quote from The Eye in the Door
“There was a tremor that had never been there before. I thought . . . I thought maybe he’d been crying. He was beyond terrified—this from a man I never saw remotely scared before. He said he wanted me to be prepared.” “Prepared for what?” Her eyes were wet now. Terese clasped her hands prayerlike, resting her fingertips on the bridge of her nose. “He said what he was going to tell me would change my entire life.” I sat back, frowned. “He used that exact phrase—change your entire life?” “Yes.” Terese was not one for hyperbole either. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.”
― Harlan Coben, quote from Long Lost
“...If you do not take it up with you in some way, I shall be under the necessity of breaking your head with this shovel”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from Der Goldkäfer
Ubik
Crossed
Who Moved My Cheese?
Les Liaisons dangere...
People of the Book
Night World, No. 3BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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