The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

by John Le Carré

All our work—yours and mine—is rooted in the theory that the whole is more important than the individual.

you believed in things because you needed to; what you believed in had no value of its own, no function.

“A dog scratches where it itches. Different dogs itch in different places.”

What do you think spies are: priests, saints, and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists, and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives. Do you think they sit like monks in London balancing the rights and wrongs?