Boadicea

“Demos are mock battles, never the real thing. Everybody knows where they're going to happen, and when and why. Nobody gets seriously hurt. Well, not unless they ask for it.”
― John le Carré, The Little Drummer Girl

“A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.”
― John le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy

“In extreme old age you suddenly find you are unable to run uphill, two buckets full of hen food are heavier than they were and the cheerful scream of hearing aids, provided they are working, is a welcome sound. Other things go wrong. Paddy Leigh Fermor, aged ninety-four came to stay, got into the bath, looked down at the tap end and to his dismay saw that both feet had turned black. ‘Oh God,’ he thought, ‘Teeth, ears and eyes are wonky and now my feet.’ He need not have worried. he had got into the bath with his socks on.”
― Deborah Devonshire

“When Schulmann talked, he fired off conflicting ideas like a spread of bullets, then waited to see which ones went home and which came back at him. The sidekick's voice followed like a stretcher-party, softly collecting up the dead. (...) Sound oil policy, sound economics, sound everything. Justice it isn't.”
― John le Carré, The Little Drummer Girl