Homes where you go when you run out of homes.

— John le Carré

I don't break down," she announced. "Got it?" He got it. He was already pulling back, looking ashamed of himself, but somehow he was still holding her wrist." I never break down. I'm a lawyer.

— John le Carré

If there's no sea-gull there's no meeting, Wick low had said. No sea-gull means abort. That's my epitaph, thought Barley. 'There was no sea-gull, so he aborted.

— John le Carré

I have a theory which I suspect is rather immoral,' Smiley went on, more lightly. 'Each of us has only a quantum of compassion. That if we lavish our concern on every stray cat, we never get to the center of things.

— John le Carré

... in moments of crisis our thoughts do not run consecutively but rather sweep over us in waves or intuition and experience ...

— John le Carré

I once heard someone say morality was method. Do you hold with that? I suppose you wouldn't. You would say that morality was vested in the aim, I expect. Difficult to know what one's aims are, that's the trouble, specially if you're British.

— John le Carré

It is only when he speaks German, as now, that he allows himself to lament the enslavement of the world's downtrodden classes. "We cannot live in a bubble, Mr. Muddy. Comfortable ignorance is not a solution. In German student societies that I was not permitted to join, they made a toast: 'Better to be a salamander, and live in the fire.

— John le Carré

It is said that men condemned to death are subject to sudden moments of elation; as if, like moths in the fire, their destruction was coincidental with attainment.

— John le Carré

I would say that since the war, our methods-out and those of the opposition-have become much the same. I mean you can't be less ruthless than the opposition simply because your government's 'policy' is benevolent, can you now?

— John le Carré

Middle children weep longer than their brothers and sisters. Over her mother’s shoulder, stilling her pains and her injured pride, Jackie Bacon watched the party leave. First, two men she had not seen before: one tall, one short and dark. They drove off in a small green van. No one waved to them, she noticed, or even said goodbye. Next, her father left in his own car; lastly a blond, good-looking man and a short fat one in an enormous overcoat like a pony blanket made their way to a sports car parked under the beech trees. For a moment she really thought there must be something wrong with the fat one, he followed so slowly and so painfully. Then, seeing the handsome man hold the car door for him, he seemed to wake, and hurried forward with a lumpy skip. Unaccountably, this gesture upset her afresh. A storm of sorrow seized her and her mother could not console her.

— John le Carré