The Paris Spy Quotes

“Without the freedom to criticize, there is no true praise.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“No great country was ever saved by good men, because good men will not go the lengths that may be necessary. —HORACE WALPOLE,”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“Spycraft 101: Don’t lie if you don’t have to.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“Could she see herself, someday, wearing a bridal gown, walking down an aisle—or going to a courthouse in a simple suit? Marriage was, after all, most young women’s life goal. And yet, the image left Maggie cold. That’s because you need to be in love first, dummy.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“Why is it that when you pick a number, any number, then double it, add 6, halve it, and take away the number you started with, your answer is always 3?”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“response.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“I will pray for him, and for you, too.” The Mother Superior opened a cupboard and took out a dusty brown bottle. “Brandy,” she said by way of explanation. “Perhaps it will help our guest with the pain.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“echinacea tincture to reduce swelling and calendula ointment to heal infection.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“You represent everything I despise.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“She turned over and looked up. In the ceiling’s corner, she could see a small brown spider spinning a web and comforted herself by thinking of math—after all, the French mathematician Descartes’s inspiration for positions of points, coordinates, and the Cartesian plane had been a fly on the ceiling of his bedroom.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“Caraway tea helps with the blood, you know,” he proclaimed to the men. “Aids in digestion, too.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“Après l’ondée. It’s a perfume—Guerlain—I used to wear. It smells like violets, cold rain, and warm sunshine. I”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“Our highest purpose is to deceive the enemy about our intentions. We’ll need to perpetrate the most important lie in history”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“It’s all smoke and mirrors. Part of the job. L’habit ne fait pas le moine.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“Burnout was a real danger for agents.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“When you drink schnapps, you can’t smoke—otherwise you’ll explode.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“Sir Stewart Menzies, signature invariably “C” in green ink, on down—distrusted SOE.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“No, no I don’t believe the P.M. would hesitate, she thought. If only math could help. But the value of human life is immeasurable, and so neither option is morally acceptable. How do you measure and compare the quantity of x versus the quantity of y + z if you don’t know the values of any of them? How many angels can die on the head of a pin?”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“Sans la liberté de blâmer, il n’est point d’éloge flatteur: Without the freedom to criticize, there is no true praise.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“I hate this! I hate all of it. I hate the way the world is. I hate knowing these things. I hate what we’re becoming. I hate who I’m becoming.” “If we loved it, we’d have to worry. We’d be no better than the Nazis.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“No country was ever saved by good men, because good men will not go to the length that may be necessary.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“The point of jewelry isn’t to make a woman look rich but to enhance her own beauty.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“For the truth is so precious she must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“It was as if the house, like time, like Paris—like France itself—was sleeping under some malevolent spell.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy

“Its motto, from Figaro’s monologue in the final act of Le Mariage de Figaro, was Sans la liberté de blâmer, il n’est point d’éloge flatteur: Without the freedom to criticize, there is no true praise. The august paper, whose writers had once included Albert Wolff, Émile Zola, and Alphonse Karr, had relocated to Vichy.”
― Susan Elia MacNeal, The Paris Spy