Call for the Dead

by John Le Carré

But gossip must see its characters in black and white, equip them with sins and motives easily conveyed in the shorthand of conversation.

By the strength of his intellect, he forced himself to observe humanity with clinical objectivity, and because he was neither immortal nor infallible he hated and feared the falseness of his life.

The State is a dream too, a symbol of nothing at all, an emptiness, a mind without a body, a game played with clouds in the sky.

He knew how intelligent men could be broken by the stupidity of their superiors, how weeks of patient work night and day could be cast aside by such a man.

Nothing but the warmth of his own blood as it ran over his face into the cinders, and far away the beating of the stonebreakers. But not here. Far away.

They loved each other and believed they loved mankind, they fought each other and believed they fought the world.

What dreams did you cherish, Mrs Fennan, that had so little of the world in them?’

“Can’t you see it’s the same? The same guns, the same children dying in the streets? Only the dream has changed, the blood is the same colour. Is that what you want?”

‘They dreamt of peace and freedom. Now they’re murderers and spies.’

He was one of those world-builders who seem to do nothing but destroy: that’s all.’