Quotes by John le Carre

About John le Carre:

David John Moore Cornwell is a British author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service, and began writing novels under a pen name. His third novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) became an international best-seller, and it remains one of his best-known works. Following the success of this novel, he left MI6 to become a full-time author.
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I want to be like Ford Madox Ford. I want to be talking to somebody across a fire, and I want him to join me and listen to me, and if he is fidgeting in his chair, I know I am not doing my job. I am a storyteller, and I know most people like a story.

John le Carre

Remember Graham Green's dictum that childhood is the bank balance of the writer? I think that all writers feel alienated. Most of us go back to an alienated childhood in some way or another. I know that I do.

John le Carre

Fools, most linguists. Damn all to say in one language, so they learn another and say damn all in that.

John le Carre

Completing a book, it's a little like having a baby.

John le Carre

But there is a big difference in working for the West and working for a totalitarian state.

John le Carre

The merit of 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,' then - or its offence, depending where you stood - was not that it was authentic, but that it was credible.

John le Carre

When I was 16 or 17, anyone could have had me if they sang the right song and recruited me in the right way. Which is why I've always had a sneaking understanding for people who took the wrong route. That doesn't mean to say I took it or even contemp...

John le Carre

I think that where I've watched a movie go wrong, it's usually because the dread committee has been interfering with it.

John le Carre

There are some subjects that can only be tackled in fiction.

John le Carre

Thank heaven, though, one of the few mistakes I haven't made is to talk about the unwritten book.

John le Carre

I happen to write by hand. I don't even type.

John le Carre

I grew up in a completely bookless household. It was my father's boast that he had never read a book from end to end.

John le Carre

I write and walk and swim and drink.

John le Carre

If I had to put a name to it, I would wish that all my books were entertainments. I think the first thing you've got to do is grab the reader by the ear, and make him sit down and listen. Make him laugh, make him feel. We all want to be entertained a...

John le Carre

I think I'm in the same mood as ever, but in some ways more mature. I guess you could say that, at 65, when you've seen the world shape up as I have, there are only two things you can do: laugh or kill yourself.

John le Carre

We lie to one another every day, in the sweetest way, often unconsciously. We dress ourselves and compose ourselves in order to present ourselves to one another.

John le Carre

I do believe very much in movie as a one-man-show. I think that where I've watched movie go wrong, it's usually because the dread committee has been interfering with it.

John le Carre

There was an ITV television production of the second novel I wrote, called 'Murder of Quality.' It was a little murder story set in a public school - I'd once taught at Eton, and I used that stuff.

John le Carre

The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous

John le Carre

By repetition, each lie becomes an irreversible fact upon which other lies are constructed.

John le Carre

The vertical man Though we value none But the horizontal one.

John le Carre

Author Bio

  • NameJohn le Carre
  • DescriptionBritish novelist
  • AliasesDavid John Moore Cornwell
  • BornOctober 19, 1931
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionWriter; Novelist
  • WorksThe Spy Who Came In From The Cold; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Honourable Schoolboy; Smiley's People; The Constant Gardener
  • AwardsJames Tait Black Memorial Prize; Edgar Award