The English Spy Quotes

“We did what we always do. We closed ranks, burned our files, and waited for the storm to pass.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“life of a professional spy as one of constant travel and mind-numbing boredom broken by interludes of sheer terror.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“With his pewter-colored locks and sturdy jaw, Graham Seymour was the archetypal British civil servant, a man who’d been born, bred, and educated to lead. He was handsome, but not too; he was tall, but not remarkably so. He made others feel inferior, especially Americans.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“I like the darkness. It clarifies my thinking. – Gabriel Allon”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“the cardinal rule when it comes to assassinations. It’s not important who fires the shot. It’s who pays for the bullet.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“Gabriel made no reply. On the opposite side of the street, a woman with one arm and burns on her face was attempting to unlock the door of a dress shop. Gabriel supposed she was one of the wounded. There were more than two hundred that day: men, women, teenagers, small children. The politicians and the press always seemed to focus on the dead after a bombing, but the wounded were soon forgotten—the ones with scorched flesh, the ones with memories so terrible that no amount of therapy or medication could put their minds at rest. Such were the accomplishments of a man like Eamon Quinn, a man who could make a ball of fire travel one thousand feet per second.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“Grudgingly, she approved the commission, provided he use only child-safe paints and that the work be done within twenty-four hours. Gabriel hurried off to a nearby paint store with his bodyguards in tow and returned in short order with the necessary supplies. With a few strokes of a roller—an instrument he had never used before—he obliterated Chiara’s work beneath a fresh layer of pale blue paint. It remained too wet to work more that evening, so he rose early the next morning and swiftly decorated the wall in a bank of glowing Titianesque clouds. Lastly, he added a small child angel, a boy, who was peering downward over the edge of the highest cloud on the scene below. The figure was borrowed from Veronese’s Virgin and Child in Glory with Saints. With tears in his eyes and a trembling hand, Gabriel gave the angel the face of his son as it appeared on the night of his death. Then he signed his name and the date, and it was done.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“And we both know the cardinal rule when it comes to assassinations. It’s not important who fires the shot. It’s who pays for the bullet.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“Putin has no real politics of his own. He is a kleptocrat and has no philosophy other than the cynical exercise of power.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“placed on the table next”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“Indeed, Putin would like nothing more than to see the complete collapse of NATO so he can reconstitute Russia’s lost empire without the meddlesome West standing in his way. Under his leadership, Russia is once again quietly funneling money to extreme political parties in Western Europe on both the left and the right. It seems Putin doesn’t care much about his friends’ politics, so long as they are opposed to the United States and see the world roughly as he does. Besides, Putin has no real politics of his own. He is a kleptocrat and has no philosophy other than the cynical exercise of power.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“Some paintings are beyond repair, Ari. And so are some relationships. – Gabriel Allon”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“You know, Graham, sometimes revenge is good for the soul. – Jonathan Lancaster”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“For the child to die before the parent. It upends the natural order of things . One can’t grieve properly. One can only think of vengeance. - Ari Shamron I”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“It’s hard to go old-school in the modern world. Gabriel Allon”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“And we both know the cardinal rule when it comes to assassinations. It’s not important who fires the shot. It’s who pays for the bullet. - Graham Seymour”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“Gabriel wondered why CNN had become so enamored with British reporters. He supposed it was the accent. The news always sounded more authoritative when delivered with a British accent, even if not a word if it was true.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“[...] saber cómo acaba la vida solo conseguiría estropear la historia.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“[...] lo que importa no es quien dispara, sino quien paga la bala.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“Our mistakes always come back to haunt us. And eventually all debts come due.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“This is what happens when you send an Irishman to do a Russian’s job.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“A terrible thing, isn’t it?” “What’s that, Ari?” “For the child to die before the parent. It upends the natural order of things.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“«Eso es lo maravilloso de nuestro oficio», pensó. «Que nuestros errores siempre vuelven para atormentarnos. Y al final todas las deudas se pagan».    ”
― Daniel Silva, El espía inglés

“—Que un hijo muera antes que su padre. Revierte el orden natural de las cosas. —Arrojó su cigarrillo al fuego—. Uno no puede llorar como es debido.”
― Daniel Silva, El espía inglés

“on the island where the drunken and brokenhearted typically washed ashore after a night of debauchery. A red-faced Swede at Le Select claimed to have bought Spider a Heineken that very morning. Someone else said he saw him stalking the beach at Colombier, and there was a report, never confirmed, of an inconsolable creature baying at the moon in the wilds of Toiny. The gendarmes faithfully followed each lead. Then they scoured the island from north to south, stem to stern, all to no avail. A few minutes after sundown, Reginald Ogilvy informed the crew of the Aurora that Spider Barnes had vanished and that a suitable replacement would have to be found in short order. The crew fanned out across the island, from the waterside eateries of Gustavia to the beach shacks of the Grand Cul-de-Sac. And by nine that evening, in the unlikeliest of places, they had found their man. He had arrived on the island at the height of hurricane season and settled into the clapboard cottage at the far end of the beach at Lorient. He had no possessions other than a canvas duffel bag, a stack of well-read books, a shortwave radio, and a rattletrap motor scooter that he’d acquired in Gustavia for a few grimy banknotes and a smile. The books were thick, weighty, and learned; the radio was of a quality”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“a temporary solution to the city’s sectarian bloodletting. Now they were a permanent feature of its geography—indeed, their number, length, and scale had actually increased since the signing of the Good Friday accords. On Springfield Road the barricade was a transparent green fence about ten meters in height. But on Cupar Way, a particularly tense part of the Ardoyne, it was a Berlin Wall–like structure topped by razor wire. Residents on both sides had covered it in murals. One likened it to the separation fence between Israel and the West Bank. “Does this look like peace to you?” asked Keller. “No,” answered Gabriel. “It looks like home.” Finally, at half past one, Keller turned into Stratford Gardens. Number 8, like its neighbors, was a two-level redbrick house with a white door and a single window on each floor. Weeds flourished in the forecourt; a green rubbish bin lay toppled by the wind. Keller pulled to the curb and switched off the engine.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“A majority of the country—reliable polling said it was so—refused to believe she was actually gone. They hung their hopes on the fact that only one of the Aurora’s two Zodiac dinghies had been found. Surely, they argued, she was adrift on the open seas or had washed ashore on a deserted island. One disreputable Web site went so far as to report that she had been spotted on Montserrat. Another said she was living quietly by the sea in Dorset. Conspiracy theorists of every stripe concocted lurid tales of a plot to kill the princess that was conceived by the Queen’s Privy Council and carried out by Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6. Pressure mounted on its chief, Graham Seymour, to issue a full-throated denial of the allegations, but he steadfastly refused.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“the Americans did that. The president and his advisers were too quick to part ways with the Arab strongmen. Now the president’s confronted with a world gone mad, and he doesn’t have a clue as to what to do about it.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“awaiting a departure order.”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy

“in”
― Daniel Silva, The English Spy