“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)

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John le Carré 42

British novelist and spy 1931

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