“And gradually it dawned on him, if a dawning can take place in total blackens, that his life had consisted of a run of rehearsals for a play he had failed to take part in. And that what he needed to do from now on, if there was going to be a now on, was abandon his morbid quest for order, and treat himself to a little chaos, on the grounds that while order was demonstrably no substitute for happiness, chaos might open the way to it.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
“Every man has his personal devil waiting for him somewhere.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
“I know their unstinted devotion to the free-market economy, provided it's their freedom and somebody else's economy.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
“There is no one better than a good Englishman and no one worse than a bad one. I have observed you. I think you are a good one. Mr Pine, do you know Richard Roper?”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
“Even his Englishness was a well-kept secret.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
“The snow is still falling and the worst man in the world is drawn towards it like a man who is contemplating his childhood in the dancing flakes.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
“There's no such thing as a decision. There never was. There's whether you've had a good day or a bad day, there's going forward because there's nothing behind and running because if you stand still any longer you'll fall over. There's movement or there's stagnation, there's the past that drives you and the regimental chaplain who preaches that only the obedient are free and the women who say you have no feelings, but they can't live without you.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
“Promise to build a chap a house, he won't believe you. Threaten to burn his place down, he'll do what you tell him. Fact of life.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
“And gradually it dawned on him, if a dawning can take place in total blackness, that his life has consisted of a run of rehearsals for a play he had failed to take part in. And that what he needed to do from now on, if there was going to be a now on, was abandon his morbid quest for order and treat himself to a little chaos, on the grounds that while order was demonstrably no substitute for happiness, chaos might open the way to it.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
“Guns have their own silence. It is the silence of the dead to come.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
“Trouble with arms is, everyone thought they were recession-proof, but they’re not. Iran–Iraq was an arms dealers’ charter, and they thought it would never end. Since then it’s been downhill all the way. Too many manufacturers chasing too few wars. Too much loose hardware being dumped on the market. Too much peace about and not enough hard currency. Our Dicky did a bit of the Serbo-Croat thing, of course – Croats via Athens, Serbs via Poland – but the numbers weren’t in his league and there were too many dogs in the hunt. Cuba’s gone dead, so’s South Africa, they make their own. Ireland isn’t worth a light or he’d have done that too. Peru, he’s got a thing going there, supplying the Shining Path boys. And he’s been making a play for the Muslim insurgents in the Southern Philippines, but the North Koreans are in there ahead of him and I’ve a suspicion he’s going to get his nose bloodied again.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
“Hotel’s full up, I’m afraid, Mr. Roper, Jonathan rehearsed in another last-ditch effort to fend off the inevitable. Herr Meister is desolated. A temporary clerk has made an unpardonable error. However, we have managed to obtain rooms for you at the Baur au Lac, et cetera.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
“You give the air of looking for someone, Sophie had said. But I think the missing person is yourself. Each”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
“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.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
“It was him taught Idi Amin’s lads how to extract voluntary confessions with the aid of an electric cattle-prod. Our chum likes them English and he likes them with a dirty past. He”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
“shoes and a leather jacket. When Burr had”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
“band above her and calls to somebody she”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
“Dining alone had always been his particular pleasure, and tonight, in deference to the war’s depletion, Maître Berri had promoted him from his single-seater by the service door to one of the high altars at the window.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
“The pallor of his eyes caught you by surprise. You expected more challenge from him, heavier shadows. And”
― John le Carré, quote from The Night Manager
John le Carré
Born place: in Poole, Dorset, England, The United Kingdom
Born date October 19, 1931
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“Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from This Boy's Life
“When Elizabeth finally descended the stairs on her way to the dining room she was two hours late. Deliberately.
“Good heavens, you’re tardy, my dear!” Sir Francis said, shoving back his chair and rushing to the doorway where Elizabeth had been standing, trying to gather her courage to do what needed to be done. “Come and meet my guests,” he said, drawing her forward after a swift, disappointed look at her drab attire and severe coiffure. “We did as you suggested in your note and went ahead with supper. What kept you abovestairs so long?”
“I was at prayer,” Elizabeth said, managing to look him straight in the eye.
Sir Francis recovered from his surprise in time to introduce her to the three other people at the table-two men who resembled him in age and features and two women of perhaps five and thirty who were both attired in the most shockingly revealing gowns Elizabeth had ever seen.
Elizabeth accepted a helping of cold meat to silence her protesting stomach while both women studied her with unhidden scorn. “That is a most unusual ensemble you’re wearing, I must say,” remarked the woman named Eloise. “Is it the custom where you come from to dress so…simply?”
Elizabeth took a dainty bite of meat. “Not really. I disapprove of too much personal adornment.” She turned to Sir Francis with an innocent stare. “Gowns are expensive. I consider them a great waste of money.”
Sir Francis was suddenly inclined to agree, particularly since he intended to keep her naked as much as possible. “Quite right!” he beamed, eyeing the other ladies with pointed disapproval. “No sense in spending all that money on gowns. No point in spending money at all.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Elizabeth said, nodding. “I prefer to give every shilling I can find to charity instead.”
“Give it away?” he said in a muted roar, half rising out of his chair. Then he forced himself to sit back down and reconsider the wisdom of wedding her. She was lovely-her face more mature then he remembered it, but not even the black veil and scraped-back hair could detract from the beauty of her emerald-green eyes with their long, sooty lashes. Her eyes had dark circles beneath them-shadows he didn’t recall seeing there earlier in the day. He put the shadows down to her far-too-serious nature. Her dowry was creditable, and her body beneath that shapeless black gown…he wished he could see her shape. Perhaps it, too, had changed, and not for the better, in the past few years.
“I had hoped, my dear,” Sir Francis said, covering her hand with his and squeezing it affectionately, “that you might wear something else down to supper, as I suggested you should.”
Elizabeth gave him an innocent stare. “This is all I brought.”
“All you brought?” he uttered. “B-But I definitely saw my footmen carrying several trunks upstairs.”
“They belong to my aunt-only one of them is mine,” she fabricated hastily, already anticipating his next question and thinking madly for some satisfactory answer.
“Really?” He continued to eye her gown with great dissatisfaction, and then he asked exactly the question she’d expected: “What, may I ask, does your one truck contain if not gowns?”
Inspiration struck, and Elizabeth smiled radiantly. “Something of great value. Priceless value,” she confided.
All faces at the table watched her with alert fascination-particularly the greedy Sir Francis. “Well, don’t keep us in suspense, love. What’s in it?”
“The mortal remains of Saint Jacob.”
― Judith McNaught, quote from Almost Heaven
“Don’t feel bad; I regularly reduce people to unintelligible stammers.”
― Eoin Colfer, quote from Airman
“One cannot always marry the person one loves...”
― Kate Mosse, quote from Sepulchre
“Mama--Mama--I want so many things... I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy...”
― Lorraine Hansberry, quote from A Raisin in the Sun
When Will There Be G...
Henderson the Rain K...
Of Bees and Mist
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