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“There are always a dozen reasons for doing nothing,” Ann liked to say—it was a favourite apologia, indeed, for many of her misdemeanours—“There is only one reason for doing something. And that’s because you want to.” Or have to? Ann would furiously deny it: coercion, she would say, is just another word for doing what you want; or for not doing what you are afraid of.
This banter was Alleline’s one instrument of communication; it could be friendly or hostile, reproachful or congratulatory, but in the end it was like a constant tapping on the same spot.
Sitting is an eloquent business; any actor will tell you that. We sit according to our natures. We sprawl and straddle, we rest like boxers between rounds, we fidget, perch, cross and uncross our legs, lose patience, lose endurance.
“I behaved like a soft fool. The very archetype of a flabby Western liberal. But I would rather be my kind of fool than his, for all that.
Whenever I have any doubts about my political sympathies, I remember this line. My side isn't perfect, and the other side(s) aren't all bad, but for me the pros and cons balance towards the left.
Of all her cousins, Ann had once said proudly, only Miles Sercombe was without a single redeeming feature. For the first time, Smiley really believed she was right. He felt not only idiotic but incoherent.
An important life lesson: few people are completely unreachable, but when you encounter one, not only do you not get through to them, but you end up feeling like an idiot yourself.
“After all, if you make your enemy look a fool, you lose the justification for engaging him.”
The permutations are infinite, once you’ve brought off the basic lie.
Take it to its logical conclusion and Gerald would have us strangling our own children in their beds. It would be beautiful in another context,”
Treason is very much a matter of habit, Smiley decided,
He settled instead for a picture of one of those wooden Russian dolls that open up, revealing one person inside the other, and another inside him. Of all men living, only Karla had seen the last little doll inside Bill Haydon.
