Berlin Game Quotes

“Perhaps all fear is worse than reality, just as all hope is better than fulfilment.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“That was one of the problems of marrying into wealth; there were no luxuries.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“Did you ever say hello to a girl you almost married long ago? Did she smile the same captivating smile, and give your arm a hug in a gesture you’d almost forgotten? Did the wrinkles as she smiled make you wonder what marvellous times you’d missed? That’s how I felt about Berlin every time I came back here.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“Tessa was sincere but shallow; she was loving but mercurial; she was an exhibitionist without enough confidence to be an actor. While Fiona displayed all the characteristics of elder children: stability, confidence, intellect in abundance, and that cold reserve with which to judge all the shortcomings of the world.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“I’d long ago learned that it is only the very devout who toy with heresy. It’s only the Jesuit who complains of the Pope, only the devoted parent who ridicules his child, only the super rich who pick up pennies from the gutter. And in East Berlin it is only the truly faithful who speak treason with such self-assurance.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“Don’t explain,’ I said. ‘Leave me something to be mystified about.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“I’ve been taking things too seriously for years,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid it makes me a difficult man to live with. But I’ve stayed alive, sweetheart. And that means a lot to me.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“Trent’s a Balliol man, like me,’ said Dicky suddenly. ‘Are you boasting, confessing or complaining?’ I asked.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“To give my characters a real, or at least a convincing, life demanded more space. Did giving them a domestic dimension mean pressing the pause button in order to relate the dull routines of mortgages, electric bills, children’s ailments and traffic jams? No, that is not the way to treat your readers unless you just don’t care about them; and in that case you should be writing literary novels.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“Ich bin ein Berliner,’ I said. It was a joke. A Berliner is a doughnut. The day after President Kennedy made his famous proclamation, Berlin cartoonists had a field day with talking doughnuts.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“you’ll have to ask Fiona.’ ‘Did you get the information by some other means? I’m determined to press this point, Giles. You may as well come clean.’ ‘Because your pal Werner Volkmann did it? And you’d like to clear him?’ ‘How did Werner get into Operations that night? He’s never worked in Operations. He’s always been a street man.’ ‘Werner Volkmann wasn’t up there. He was Signals Security One. He brought it from Signals to Ciphers”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“waiting at the bus stop. Only then did he feel safe. He turned abruptly”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“This region of England has the prettiest villages and most beautiful countryside in the world, and yet there is something about such contrived perfection that I find disquieting.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game: A Bernard Samson Novel

“He liked clichés. They were, he said, the best way to get simple ideas into the heads of idiots.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game: A Bernard Samson Novel

“There’s nothing a man can do if you buy something you want and say “Happy birthday” when he first sees it.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“This region of England has the prettiest villages and most beautiful countryside in the world, and yet there is something about such contrived perfection that I find disquieting. For the cramped labourers’ cottages are occupied by stockbrokers and building speculators, and ye host in ye olde village pub turns out to be an airline pilot between trips. The real villagers live near the main road in ugly brick terraced houses, their front gardens full of broken motorcars.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“I put the gun and the scarf into the brown paper bag again. And I locked it into the desk where I kept unpaid bills, Fiona’s jewellery and letters from the bank about my overdraft.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“I shouldn’t have hit him at all but it was only a little jab in the belly and it helped him to sober up still more.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“Dicky Cruyer ran a finger along the waist of his white denim jeans until he felt the designer’s leather label on his back pocket.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“There was an open bottle of champagne in the ice bucket, and already the level was down as far as the label. ‘Are we celebrating something?’ I asked as I took off my coat and hung it in the hall. ‘Don’t be so bloody bourgeois,’ said Tessa, handing me a champagne flute filled right to the brim. That was one of the problems of marrying into wealth; there were no luxuries.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“blow”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game