John le Carré: Quotes about thinking

“I think what gives my works whatever universality they have is that they use the metaphysical secret world to describe some realities of the overt world.”

John le Carré

As quoted in "Master of the Secret World: John le Carré on Deception, Storytelling and American Hubris" by Andrew Ross, in Salon (21 October 1996); also in Conversations with John le Carré (2004) edited by Matthew Joseph Bruccoli and Judith Baughman, p. 141
Context: I use the furniture of espionage to amuse the reader, to make the reader listen to me, because most people like to read about intrigue and spies. I hope to provide a metaphor for the average reader's daily life. Most of us live in a slightly conspiratorial relationship with our employer and perhaps with our marriage. I think what gives my works whatever universality they have is that they use the metaphysical secret world to describe some realities of the overt world.

Secret , World , Thinking , Reality

“So odd to think of the Devil as a fumbler!”

John le Carré book Smiley's People

Smiley's People (1979)

Thinking

“There are some Arabs who think that the Germans did the right thing by the Jews. This makes it easy to recruit Arab terrorist.”

John le Carré

Radio interview (November 2008)

Thinking

“Who do you think spies are: priests, saints and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors, too, yes; pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives. Do you think they sit like monks in London balancing the rights and wrongs? I’d have killed Mundt if I could, I hate his guts; but not now. It so happens they need him. They need him so that the great moronic mass that you admire can sleep soundly in their beds at night. They need him for the safety of ordinary, crummy people like you and me.”

John le Carré

Source: The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1963), p.231

Sleep , Hate , Night , People

“What the hell do you think spies are? Model philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They’re not. They’re just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me, little men, drunkards, queers, henpecked husbands, civil servants, playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong?”

John le Carré

from a clip from the film adaptation of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, starring Richard Burton as Alec Leamas, an alcoholic cynical British spy
The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1963)
Source: Quoted in “The United States of America Has Gone Mad”: John le Carré on Iraq War, Israel & U.S. Militarism, Democracy Now! https://www.democracynow.org/2020/12/25/the_united_states_of_america_has (25 December 2020)

God , Hell , Thinking , Men

“Where I kick myself is where I think I actually contributed to the myth of the intelligence services being very good.”

John le Carré

As quoted in Halliwell's Film Companion https://archive.org/details/halliwellswhoswh00hall/page/280/mode/2up (1985) by Leslie Halliwell, p. 281

Intelligence , Thinking