Quotes from The Russia House

“She's become a Russian again, he thought. When something works, she's grateful. When it doesn't work, it's life.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House

“When a problem threatens to engulf you, there's nothing like irrelevant detail to keep your head above water.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House

“... in moments of crisis our thoughts do not run consecutively but rather sweep over us in waves or intuition and experience ...”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House

“There's no way out," he announced with satisfaction, "and no amount of wishful dreaming will produce one. The demon won't go back in its bottle, the face-off is for ever, the embrace gets tighter and the toys cleverer with every generation, and there's no such thing for either side as enough security. Not for the main players, not for the nasty little newcomers who each year run themselves up a suitcase bomb and join the club. We get tired of believing that, because we're human. We may even con ourselves into believing the threat has gone away. It never will. Never, never, never."

"So, who'll save us then, Walt?" Barley asked. "You and Nedsky?"

"Vanity, if anything will, which I doubt," Walter retorted. "No leader wants to go down in history as the ass who destroyed his country in an afternoon. And funk, I suppose. Most of our gallant politicians do have a narcissistic objection to suicide, thank God.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House

“For a long moment, while Brock stood off observing them, Ned and Barley appraised one another as only Englishmen can who are of the same height and class and shape of head.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House

“Todd and Larry were Quinn’s people. They were clean-limbed and pretty and, for a man of my age, ludicrously youthful.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House

“Some men will never be heroes, some heroes will never be men, he thought, with urgent acknowledgements to Joseph Conrad.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House

“CIA Interrogator:
Have you ever met any jazz musicians you would describe, or who would describe themselves, as anarchists?

Bartholomew 'Barley' Scott Blair:
Hmmm... ah, there was a trombone player, Wilfred Baker.

Bartholomew 'Barley' Scott Blair:
He's the only jazz musician I can think of who is completely devoid of anarchist tendencies.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House

“There was only now [ ... ] There was no tomorrow because tomorrow was the excuse. There was now or there was nowhere.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House

“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 flood when they were needed.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House

“si les Américains s'étaient donné autant de mal pour le désarmement que pour envoyer un pauvre type sur la lune, ou coller des rayures roses dans le dentifrice, on l'aurait depuis longtemps, le désarmement. (...) le plus grand péché de l'Occident était de croire qu'il pouvait foutre en l'air le système soviétique par une surenchère dans la course aux armements, parce que dans ce cas-là, on jouait avec le destin de l'humanité. Et qu'en mettant sabre au clair, l'Ouest avait fourni un bon prétexte aux dirigeants soviétiques pour garder leur rideau baissé et instituer un État militaire. (chapitre 4)”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House

“si quelque chose peut nous sauver, ce dont je doute, ce sera la vanité (...) aucun chef d'état ne souhaite passer à la postérité comme étant le taré qui a anéanti son pays en un après-midi. Et puis la trouille, peut-être. Dieu soit loué! la plupart de nos beaux politiciens ont une aversion narcissique pour l'auto-destruction. (chapitre 5)”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House

“Les experts sont des fanatiques. Ils ne résolvent rien! Ils sont à la solde du système qui les emploie. Ils le perpétuent. Quand nous nous ferons torturer, ce sera par des experts. Quand nous serons pendus, ce sera par des experts. (...) Quand le monde sera détruit, ce ne sera pas par des fous, mais par de sages experts et par l'ignorance incommensurable des bureaucrates. (chapitre 10)”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House

“Her palm was broad and strong and dry. Its nakedness against his own was like the gift of her entire body.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House

“The Soviet Knight is dying inside his armour. He is a secondary power like you British. He can start a war but cannot continue one and cannot win one. Believe me.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House

“he was proud of having thrown caution”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House

“É caminhando que aprendo o rumo do meu caminho”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House

“What's it got to do with you and the CIA whether I came here with a woman or a Muscovy duck?”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House

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Popular quotes

“Radical faith means you trust that the Lord visited these weaknesses and sorrows on you as part of His plan...”
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― J.K. Rowling, quote from Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies

“Electrons, when they were first discovered, behaved exactly like particles or bullets, very simply. Further research showed, from electron diffraction experiments for example, that they behaved like waves. As time went on there was a growing confusion about how these things really behaved ---- waves or particles, particles or waves? Everything looked like both.

This growing confusion was resolved in 1925 or 1926 with the advent of the correct equations for quantum mechanics. Now we know how the electrons and light behave. But what can I call it? If I say they behave like particles I give the wrong impression; also if I say they behave like waves. They behave in their own inimitable way, which technically could be called a quantum mechanical way. They behave in a way that is like nothing that you have seen before. Your experience with things that you have seen before is incomplete. The behavior of things on a very tiny scale is simply different. An atom does not behave like a weight hanging on a spring and oscillating. Nor does it behave like a miniature representation of the solar system with little planets going around in orbits. Nor does it appear to be somewhat like a cloud or fog of some sort surrounding the nucleus. It behaves like nothing you have seen before.

There is one simplication at least. Electrons behave in this respect in exactly the same way as photons; they are both screwy, but in exactly in the same way….

The difficulty really is psychological and exists in the perpetual torment that results from your saying to yourself, "But how can it be like that?" which is a reflection of uncontrolled but utterly vain desire to see it in terms of something familiar. I will not describe it in terms of an analogy with something familiar; I will simply describe it. There was a time when the newspapers said that only twelve men understood the theory of relativity. I do not believe there ever was such a time. There might have been a time when only one man did, because he was the only guy who caught on, before he wrote his paper. But after people read the paper a lot of people understood the theory of relativity in some way or other, certainly more than twelve. On the other hand, I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics. So do not take the lecture too seriously, feeling that you really have to understand in terms of some model what I am going to describe, but just relax and enjoy it. I am going to tell you what nature behaves like. If you will simply admit that maybe she does behave like this, you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possible avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get 'down the drain', into a blind alley from which nobody has escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Character of Physical Law

“The error was not yours, Somerled," Eyvind said quietly, moving to the doorway. "It was mine. I failed to teach you the one lesson you could not do without: how to be a man.”
― Juliet Marillier, quote from Wolfskin

“The current fashions are impractical for an active person. Skirts so tight one must toddle like an infant, bodices boned so firmly it is impossible to draw a deep breath…. And bustles! Of all the idiotic contrivances foisted upon helpless womankind, the bustle is certainly the worst.”
― Elizabeth Peters, quote from Crocodile on the Sandbank

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