Our Kind of Traitor Quotes

“It struck him as a bit unfair that, at the age of eight, he should have manifested the same sense of solitude that haunted him at forty-three.”
― John le Carré, Our Kind of Traitor

“I've studied the disease, I've lived in the swamp. It is my informed conclusion that we are suffering, as an ex-great nation, from top-down corporate rot. And that's not just the judgement of an ailing old fart. A lot of people in my Service make a profession of not seeing things in black and white. Do not confuse me with them. I'm a late-onset, red-toothed radical with balls. Still with me?”
― John Le Carré, Our Kind of Traitor

“You’ll just have to take our word for it.’ ‘Your Service’s word?’ ‘For the time being, yes.’ ‘On the strength of what? Aren’t you supposed to be the gentlemen who lie for the good of their country?’ ‘That’s diplomats. We’re not gentlemen.’ ‘So you lie to save your hides.’ ‘That’s politicians. Different game entirely.”
― John le Carré, Our Kind of Traitor

“He’s going to save the world before he leaves it if it kills him.”
― John le Carré, Our Kind of Traitor

“It’s like the old Soviet joke we used to tell each other back in the Cold War: there’ll be no war, but in the struggle for peace, not a stone will be left standing.”
― John le Carré, Our Kind of Traitor

“... turned on the BBC World News and switched it off again. Half-truths. Quarter-truths. What the world really knows about itself, it doesn't dare say.”
― John le Carré, Our Kind of Traitor