“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

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John le Carré 42

British novelist and spy 1931

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“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 (1931) British novelist and spy

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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)

“Would you kill someone for that?…I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore…I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it,…No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out. Is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus — band — Do, and I've lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, "Yeah, I'd kill Michael Moore," and then I'd see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I'd realize, "Oh, you wouldn't kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn't choke him to death."”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

And you know, well, I'm not sure.
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Media Matters for America
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http://mediamatters.org/items/200505180008
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“The man who does not wish to belong to the mass needs only to cease taking himself easily; let him follow his conscience, which calls to him: “Be your self! All you are now doing, thinking, desiring, is not you yourself.””

Friedrich Nietzsche Untimely Meditations

“Schopenhauer as educator,” § 3.1, R. Hollingdale, trans. (1983), p. 127
Untimely Meditations (1876)

“You didn't kill him. He would have killed you, but you didn't kill him."
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Source: In the Hand of the Goddess

“Do you think I don't want him to be gone more than you do? I do. Because I need to know that I can still breathe properly when he's not around. If something happens to him, I have to know that I won't fall apart…”

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Source: On the Jellicoe Road

“When I have to think about it, I know the picture is wrong. And sizing is a form of thinking and coloring is too. My instinct about painting says, 'If you don’t think about it, it's right'. As soon as you have to decide and choose, it's wrong. And the more you decide about, the more wrong it gets. Some people, they paint abstract, so they sit there thinking about it because their thinking makes them feel they're doing something. But my thinking never makes me feel I'm doing anything.”

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“There’s a lot of people sitting around in rooms discussing how to make it happen as opposed to just, like, doing it — asking: ‘Do you have any 45-year-old-woman friends who you think are really talented who could submit an application to us?’ ‘Do you have any black friends who are great writers who haven’t had a shot.”

Samantha Bee (1969) Canadian comedic actress and author

"Smirking in the Boys’ Room" https://www.thecut.com/2016/01/samantha-bee-full-frontal-c-v-r.html, Rebecca Traister, The Cut, Jan 2016

“Being an atheist must be like living in a closed cell with no windows. I’d hate to live like that, wouldn’t you? We see them, mind you, on television today, many brilliant people who are professional atheists who say they know for a fact that it’s insanity to have a God or to believe in religion. Well, OK, God bless them for feeling that way and I hope they’re happy. But I couldn’t live with that certainty, and I wonder about some of them: why are they protesting so much? How are they so sure of what is out there? And who am I to refute the beliefs of so many great philosophers and martyrs all the way down the years?”

Anthony Hopkins (1937) Welsh stage and television actor

"Sir Anthony Hopkins: I couldn't be an atheist". https://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2011/02/11/sir-anthony-hopkins-i-couldnt-be-an-atheist/ (February 11, 2011)

“It’s a yes then? (Arik)
No. I thought I’d walk through hell to reclaim you and carry your baby just for the heck of it. Who needs marriage. (Geary)
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Good. I can let you live another day. (Geary)”

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“I expect better from Catholic bishops. They need to understand that Ukip and the Catholic Church have so much in common. I cannot think of anyone who is a bishop or a priest who would not have the same values for people as we do.”

Margot Parker (1943) UK politician

Margot Parker: ‘The bishops must meet with Ukip’ http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2014/10/08/margot-parker-the-bishops-must-meet-with-ukip/ (October 8, 2014)

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John le Carré 42

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