One of those world builders who do nothing but destroy,

— John le Carré

Our power knows no limits, yet we cannot find food for a starving child, or a home for a refugee. Our knowledge is without measure, and we build the weapons that will destroy us. We live on the edge of ourselves, terrified of the darkness within. We have harmed, corrupted and ruined, we have made mistakes and deceived.

— John le Carré

Put it this way, George,” he suggested, when he had savored the night air for a moment. “You traveling on business, or for pleasure in this thing? Which is it? Smiley’s reply was also slow in coming, and as indirect: “I was never conscious of pleasure,” he said. “Or perhaps I mean: of the distinction.

— John le Carré

She had the experience to suffer with discretion.

— John le Carré

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

Society is unconcerned with the aftermath of sensation.

— John le Carré

Some men will never be heroes, some heroes will never be men, he thought, with urgent acknowledgements to Joseph Conrad.

— John le Carré

Some people are agents from birth, Monsignors -- he told them -- appointed to the work by the period of history, the place, and their own natural dispositions. In their cases, it was simply a question of who got to them first, Your Eminences: 'Whether it's us, whether it's the opposition, or whether it's the bloody missionaries.

— John le Carré

Tessa distinguished absolutely between pain observed and pain shared. Pain observed is journalistic pain. It’s diplomatic pain. It’s television pain, over as soon as you switch off your beastly set. Those who watch suffering and do nothing about it, in her book, were little better than those who inflicted it. They were the bad Samaritans.

— John le Carré

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

— John le Carré