Three Complete Novels Quotes

“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.”
― John le Carré, The Karla Trilogy Digital Collection Featuring George Smiley: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley's People

“I refuse to bequeath my life’s work to a parade horse. I’m too vain to be flattered, too old to be ambitious, and I’m ugly as a crab. Percy’s quite the other way and there are enough witty men in Whitehall to prefer his sort to mine.”
― John le Carré, The Karla Trilogy Digital Collection Featuring George Smiley: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley's People

“The café was modern Swiss antique.”
― John le Carré, The Karla Trilogy Digital Collection Featuring George Smiley: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley's People

“You can’t eat politics, you can’t sell them, and you can’t sleep with them,’ Drake liked to say. So you might as well make money out of them.”
― John le Carré, The Karla Trilogy Digital Collection Featuring George Smiley: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley's People

“Dealing with beautiful women, Your Grace, Craw had warned, is like dealing with known criminals, and the lady you are about to solicit undoubtedly falls within that category.”
― John le Carré, The Karla Trilogy Digital Collection Featuring George Smiley: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley's People