Quotes & Sayings About Espionage

Grandpa said that we could solve a lot of the world's problems if we considered cats and dogs edible. Like the neighbor's dog who goes to the bathroom in his flower garden. And know what else? — Cole Alpaugh

We have some material on spying by a major government on the tech industry. Industrial espionage. — Julian Assange

He didn't have regular email like everyone else. He couldn't afford that digital fingerprint that the NSA, the CIA, the FBI and all the other espionage alphabeticals counted on for their privacy-bashing surveillance of the entire formerly free world. — Kenneth Eade

When you really study espionage movies, or spy movies, the beginnings are really set up to have, like, an amazing bit of action, but at the moment you're watching it, you have no idea why or what it's about. — John Lasseter

As is now generally admitted, a Soviet bomb would not have been achieved for several years more but for the success of Soviet espionage in obtaining secret information from Western scientists associated with the Manhattan Project. That is to say, political ideas in the minds of certain capable physicists and others took the form of believing that to provide Stalin with the bomb was a
contribution to world progress. They were wrong. And their decisions show, once again, that minds of high quality in other respects are not immune to political or ideological delirium ... In the Soviet case, those involved thought they knew better than mere politicians like Churchill. They didn't. — Robert Conquest

Semtex, PE4, C-4, Plastrite, Netrolit, Spring Korper, Rowanex
Cono felt slightly shameful about his familiarity with plastics, and yet seeing them here, even so amateurishly arranged, gave him a perverse comfort. — Victor Robert Lee

If there's no sea-gull there's no meeting, Wicklow had said. No sea-gull means abort. That's my epitaph, thought Barley. 'There was no sea-gull, so he aborted. — John Le Carre

I was trained in Army Intelligence, but spent most of my army career in the infantry. But like many people of my generation, I was very much caught up in the Cold War, and books and movies about espionage. — Nelson DeMille

All warfare is based on deception. There is no place where espionage is not used. Offer the enemy bait to lure him. — Sun Tzu

If a book cover has raised lettering, metallic lettering, or raised metallic lettering, then it is telling the reader: Hello. I am an easy-to-read work on espionage, romance, a celebrity, and/or murder. To readers who do not care for such things, this lettering tells them: Hello. I am crap. — Paul Collins

Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply. If the United States is to survive, long-standing American concepts of 'fair play' must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and counterespionage services and must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated, and more effective methods than those used against us. It may become necessary that the American people be made acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy. — Jimmy Doolittle

Nobody seems to remember you from any of your employers."
"I guess I'm not very memorable — Kenneth Eade

When you're delivering information that you don't believe in or are lying about, you manifest the same behaviors as suspects in criminal or espionage cases who are lying to officers or agents." Wright's advice: believe in what you're saying (chapter 1). "If you don't believe what you're saying, your movements will be awkward and not natural. No amount of training - unless you're a trained espionage agent or psychopath - will allow you to break that incongruence between your words and actions. If you don't believe in the message, you cannot force your body to act as though you believe in the message. — Carmine Gallo

In the case of Pakistan, the CIA actually used a fake vaccination campaign to try to locate Osama bin Laden, so now vaccination is associated with espionage. — Eula Biss

Sometimes one man must fight for what he feels is right, even against the majority. Something that is wrong does not change to right just because the majority approves it, ignores it, or the government says it is right. It is still wrong. — Kenneth Eade

Espionage, Sophronia had learned, was tough on petticoats. — Gail Carriger

The habits and language of clandestinity can intoxicate even its own practitioners. — William Colby

Clancy comments that the subtleties of national character can impact the world stage by making espionage more difficult. Americans were quirky by nature, making the sorts of eccentric moves that had to be followed up on as potential espionage cues. Russians, on the other hand, were too orderly by nature to make such distractions appear natural. — Tom Clancy

Deception is a sort of seduction. In love and war, adultery and espionage, deceit can only succeed if the deceived party is willing, in some way, to be deceived. — Ben Macintyre

Gentlemen. You are looking at the true Abraham Lincoln of Arabia. And in order to end our internal bickering - our civil war, if you will - I have solicited your aid. — Leonard Leventon

If I could rub a genie and anything could happen? Truthfully, my other love, and this is a complete 180, but I'd love to do a spy or an espionage pic, like a James Bond movie. — Chris Diamantopoulos

Let's say a Soviet exchange student back in the '70s would go back and tell the KGB about people and places and things that he'd seen and done and been involved with. This is not really espionage; there's no betrayal of trust. — Aldrich Ames

Governments, nations, borders, they're all surface, they always have been. The real structure underlying it all is money, and the institutions which control it. Finance houses, banks, organised crime; if you drill down deep enough, it's all the same. Money has no nationality, no allegiance. While nations rise and fall, it remains the same. It's the most powerful polity of all. — Dave Hutchinson

Hatred could not be the basis of her resolution to fight. It provided no access to her own qi, her vital spirit. That was the deepest truth she knew about fighting. It's what she learned from her father and Sensei: fight from the peaceful place inside, from her father's place. — Jacques Antoine

In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure and the police take the place of pirates — Michel Foucault

Spying is waiting. — John Le Carre

With werewolves gone and fire stoked, Sidheav stopped shaking. The tea, once it arrived, had its customary effect
engendering comfort and loosening the tongue. *That's tea for you*, thought Sophronia, *the great social lubricant.* Soon they had the whole story out of her. No wonder tea was considered a vital weapon of espionage. — Gail Carriger

If you knew when your last day of life was going to be, it was the best place to spend your last night on earth, because in Russia people party like tomorrow will never come. — Kenneth Eade

'The Man Who Never Was,' by Ewen Montagu, remains the best book about wartime espionage written by an active participant - incomplete, and dry in parts, it nonetheless summons up the ingenuity and sheer eccentricity of those who played this strange and dangerous game. — Ben Macintyre

Because you've managed to hide the existence of a significant other from the blogs. I don't care if you're involved with a man, a woman, or a sapient pear tree. You ought to go into international espionage. I never even heard a rumor. — Mira Grant

He might be mortal, but he was a skilled adversary, a dangerous foe with espionage skills that far surpassed even Denae's.
As an ally, Henry was clever, shrewd, cunning, and brilliant. A perfect partner for the Kings.
"I'll take him to safety if he's such a danger here," Rhi told Usaeil.
The queen lifted a black brow. "You surprise me again."
"It's my new thing." Rhi looked down at her black nails with two small hearts painted in red - Big Apple Red - on each ring finger. — Donna Grant

For a moment he came near to sharing their incredible belief - it would do no harm to mutter a prayer of thanks to the God of his childhood, the God of the Common and the castle, that no ill had yet come to Sarah's child. Then a sonic boom scattered the words of the hymn and shook the old glass of the west window and rattled the crusader's helmet which hung on a pillar, and he was reminded again of the grown-up world. He went quickly out and bought the Sunday papers. The Sunday Express had a headline on the front page - Child's Body Found in Wood. — Graham Greene

She looked into the eyes of many of them as they passed away, like some sort of angel of death. Some were frightened, some relieved, most just confused. She served as the arbiter of their passage, an earthly Charon. Or perhaps a Valkyrie, carrying fallen heroes to Valhalla. But she'd seen no heroes, no one worthy of Valhalla. — Jacques Antoine

The men were smashing windows and aiming their weapons through them. The driver had opened the door and was shouting for the women and children to get out and run and hide. But Ilina realized in some vague way that he never managed to actually say the word "hide." He really said, "Women and children, get out, get out, get out! Run and ... " The clerk's wife thought it was odd that he had stopped in the middle of a sentence, and even stranger that she herself knew the word, heard the word "hide" in her head when the driver stopped talking. — Clark Zlotchew

All women are natural born espionage agents. — Eddie Cantor

When I accepted the commission, I had something of an epiphany in the research I did about the agency, actually the science of espionage. I realized there is a connection between the sciences and the invisible forces of man. — James Sanborn

If this were some kind of entertainment, this would be roughly the point where Rupert said, "We don't have any more time, Professor, you must complete your research as soon as possible," but there was no great sense of urgency, no sense that it even mattered. It was just something that Rudi was interested in, for his own reasons. They could be working on this for years and still not understand it, and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference.
He said, "Look, Professor, a lot of effort went into getting you that information. We'd be grateful if you could make some kind of sense of it reasonably soon.
"There is one thing I can tell you right now," Lev said..."Whoever is running this thing, they're really interested in railways. — Dave Hutchinson

There was an intervention of the foreign states in the Russian Far East, Archangel of the West border of Russia. The foreign troops were participating in the attempts to stamp out the revolution. It's not just propaganda, because there are mounds of documents in the archives relating to these events and to the foreign espionage cases. — Vladimir Semichastny

My father once told me that it's not enough for a man to be lucky; that a guy has to know when that streak is on for him. — Henry Mosquera

The cold war was over, but all the little games persisted. It was a good thing those puppets in the Middle East had been too busy grubbing around in their deserts to play any serious role in international espionage ... She took a calming moment to visualize the entire Arab world as a giant parking lot. Lovely. — Magnus Flyte

My understanding is that espionage means giving secret or classified information to the enemy. Since Snowden shared information with the American people, his indictment for espionage could reveal (or confirm) that the US Government views you and me as the enemy. — Ron Paul

I found that our Soviet espionage efforts had virtually never, or had very seldom, produced any worthwhile political or economic intelligence on the Soviet Union. — Aldrich Ames

Spy' is such a short ugly word. I prefer 'espionage.' Those extra three syllables really say something. — Howard Tayler

Genetic engineering was messy. To force a sequence of foreign DNA into a plant, you couldn't just snip the desired gene from the bacteria and sew it on to the plant's DNA sequence like an old woman working on a quilt. — Kenneth Eade

Generally speaking, espionage offers each spy an opportunity to go crazy in a way he finds irresistible — Kurt Vonnegut

The Internet has made us richer, freer, connected and informed in ways its founders could not have dreamt of. It has also become a vector of attack, espionage, crime and harm. — George Osborne

Once you've lived the inside-out world of espionage, you never shed it. It's a mentality, a double standard of existence. — John Le Carre

I'm sort of fascinated by the whole espionage crime thing. — Aaron Eckhart

No one said learning etiquette and espionage would be easy, my dear. — Gail Carriger

It is essential to seek out enemy agents who have come to conduct espionage against you and to bribe them to serve you. Give them instructions and care for them. Thus doubled agents are recruited and used. — Sun Tzu

The executions of agents, partisans, saboteurs, suspicious people, indulging in espionage and sabotage, and those who were of a detrimental effect to the German Army, were, in my opinion, completely in accordance with the Hague Convention. — Paul Blobel

He was learning to live on several planes at once. The art of it was to forget everything except the ground you stood on and the face you spoke from at that moment. — John Le Carre

Cheating was a concept both foreign and integral to the fighting of wars. — Tom Clancy

Indeed, the U.N. is the main Soviet espionage center in this country. — Jack Anderson

The pistol had been one hell of a find, because it hadn't quite been what she'd thought it was at first blush. Not simply the S&W Mk 39, but rather a modified version of the same, the Mk 22 Mod 0, also called the "hush puppy". It was Vietnam-era, not the most reliable gun in the world, but wonderfully silent, not only equipped with a silencer to eliminate the sound of gunfire, but also with a slide lock, to keep the actual mechanical operation of the gun quiet as well. She'd test-fired the gun at the market before purchasing, and been stunned that it still worked. The Uzbek vendor had offered to sell it to her cheap.
"It's too quiet," he'd explained. "No one wants it."
Chace shut her eyes, half smiling at the memory. — Greg Rucka

It's interesting in this day and age to do a film about political espionage and wiretapping. I don't think that those types of secrets that J. Edgar Hoover was able to obtain and keep for such a long period of time would be possible in today's world, with the Internet and WikiLeaks. — Leonardo DiCaprio

I have a theory which I suspect is rather immoral,' Smiley went on, more lightly. 'Each of us has only a quantum of compassion. That if we lavish our concern on every stray cat, we never get to the centre of things. — John Le Carre

Do you know what love is? I'll tell you: it is whatever you can still betray. — John Le Carre

Men like us believe we are gods... — Claudette Walker

It came as naturally to him as breathing or lying, or worse. His mama had only taught her son to be cautious at all times. Garnette was more than that. Much, much more than that. — V.S. Carnes

People who are different are considered ineffective. People who can't hide their shortcomings are not considered a threat. A lot of spies rely on being unobtrusive, but we flat out flaunt the fact that we're different, and those we try to get information from put us on an even lower level than the ones they don't notice. They don't believe we're even capable of being a threat, and they misstep more than they might with someone they simply don't know. — Lynn Blackmar

The professor stared straight ahead. He felt Husam's eyes upon him. He clenched his hands together tightly, lest their shaking reveal everything. — Christian F. Burton

There were moments when Szara suspected that many idealists drawn to Communism were, at heart, people with an appetite for clandestine life. — Alan Furst

Smiley himself was one of those solitaires who seem to have come into the world fully educated at the age of eighteen. Obscurity was his nature, as well as his profession. The byways of espionage are not populated by the brash and colourful adventurers of fiction. A man who, like Smiley, has lived and worked for years among his country's enemies learns only one prayer: that he may never, never be noticed. Assimilation is his highest aim, he learns to love the crowds who pass him in the street without a glance; he clings to them for his anonimity and his safety. His fear makes him servile - he could embrace the shoppers who jostle him in their impatience, and force him from the pavement. He could adore the officials, the police, the bus conductors, for the terse indifference of their attitudes. (ch. 9) — John Le Carre

The human spy, in terms of the American espionage effort, had never been terribly pertinent. — Aldrich Ames

This formidable officine dates from Peter the Great, who formed it in 1697...its historic origins must, however, be looked for much earlier; one finds them in the byzantine traditions and in the operations of the Tartar domination...espionage, delation, torture, and secret executions were the normal and regulating instruments of the |||||||| police. — Maurice Paleologue

Good tradecraft keeps espionage routine and boring. — Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius

This is the wonderful thing about espionage, nothing exists any more. — William Stephenson

Never coming back here, she thought.
With a groan, she levered herself into a sitting position and discovered a painful crick in her neck. Never ever. She launched herself off the bed and limped over to the door and put here eye to the viewer, was treated to a fish-eye view of a small, dapper, well-dressed man holding a bunch of white roses.
Okay. Man with flowers. Carey looked around the room. The windows opened on short tethers so guests couldn't throw furniture or each other out into the street, and she was too high to jump anyway. She looked around the room again, looking for possible weapons. There was a rickety-looking chair by the desk in the corner, but it would probably fall to bits even before she hit anyone with it. She looked through the viewer. The little man knocked again. Not urgently, not in an official we-have-come-to-take-you-to-the-gulag kind of way, but in the manner of a gentleman visiting his lady friend with a nice bunch of roses. — Dave Hutchinson

The Obsidian Order?" I asked.
"What do you know about us?"
"Nothing."
"That's a good start. — Andrew J. Robinson

For years, President Obama and his top officials vehemently denounced China for using its surveillance capabilities for economic advantage while insisting that the United States and its allies never do any such thing. The Washington Post quoted an NSA spokesperson saying that the Department of Defense, of which the agency is a part, " 'does engage' in computer network exploitation," but "does ***not*** engage in economic espionage in any domain, including 'cyber' " [emphatic asterisks in the original]. That the NSA spies for precisely the economic motive it has denied is proven by its own documents. The agency acts for the benefit of what it calls its "customers," a list that includes not only the White House, the State Department, and the CIA, but also primarily economic agencies, such as the US Trade Representative and the Departments of Agriculture, Treasury, and Commerce: — Glenn Greenwald

Look realistically at espionage thrillers again. They're not only alive, readers are excited about them. — Gayle Lynds

An espionage organization is a collector: it collects raw information. That gets processed by a machinery that is supposed to resolve its reliability, and to present a finished product. — Aldrich Ames

It is amazing what a woman can do if only she ignores what men tell her she can't. — Carol K. Carr

They would know that inconsistency in human decision can make nonsense of the best-planned espionage approach; that cheats, liars and criminals may resist every blandishment while respectable gentlemen have been moved to appalling treasons by watery cabbage in a Departmental canteen. — John Le Carre

Eyes closed, she let her pain float away with the prayers, higher and higher, around the mosque's minarets, and up to the sky. She thought about the old Arabic saying that a woman has only two exits. One exit leads from my father's house to my husband's. The other leads from my husband's house to my grave. I'm not ready for the second exit yet. — Christian F. Burton

Mysteries include so many things: the noir novel, espionage novel, private eye novels, thrillers, police procedurals. But the pure detective story is where there's a detective and a criminal who's committed a murder and leaves clues for the detective and the careful reader to find. — Otto Penzler

When a spy sells something entirely new, all he needs to do is recount something you could find in any second-hand book stall. — Umberto Eco

The way the United States intelligence community operates is it doesn't limit itself to the protection of the homeland. It doesn't limit itself to countering terrorist threats, countering nuclear proliferation. It's also used for economic espionage, for political spying to gain some knowledge of what other countries are doing. — Edward Snowden

In Shara's estimation, lists form one half of the heart of intelligence, the second half being patience. Most espionage work, after all, is a matter of collecting data and categorizing it: who belongs to which group, and why; where are they now, and how are we sure, and do we have someone else in the region; and now that we have cataloged those groups, what threat level should they be categorized under; and so on, and so on, and so on. — Robert Jackson Bennett

Cono felt embarrassed by the thought that he might have been just another pitiful orphan trying to turn his friends into family, and that he might be blinded by this need, a need that colored his whole life, that ache to offer worth to someone. — Victor Robert Lee

Nobody understood why opposites attracted, and anybody who said they did was probably selling a book. — Lynn Blackmar

The internet exchange is sort of the core points where all of the international cables come together, where all of the internet service providers come together, and they trade lines with each other. These are priority one targets for any sort of espionage agency, because they provide access to so many people's communications. — Edward Snowden

To achieve its New World Order plans, the Omega Agency needed people who could make use of their primordial instincts, who wouldn't question the morality of orders and who would kill without hesitation. Operatives of that caliber were priceless. — James Morcan

You want me to be your spy in a game of restaurant espionage? Will I need a code name?"
"It's nothing morally reprehensible or anything, " Wes hastened to assure her. "Just curiosity."
"I think your code name should be Tiberius," she said decisively. "I'll be Uhura."
"Tiberius? As in James Tiberius Kirk?" Wes blinked, then grinned. "Oh my God, this is your version of flirting. How do you say 'I fancy you' in Klingon? — Louisa Edwards

So much of the inexplicable about the Soviet experience - the hatred of the peasantry for example, the secrecy and paranoia, the murderous witch hunt of the Great Terror, the placing of the Party above family and life itself, the suspicion of the USSR's own espionage that led to the success of Hitler's 1941 surprise attack - was the result of the underground life, the konspiratsia of the Okhrana and the revolutionaries, and also the Caucasian values and style of Stalin. And not just of Stalin. — Simon Sebag Montefiore

Now that little problem of yours, this business of not knowing good men from bad men and villains from heroes and so forth ... There's still plenty for you to do. And you'll do it. And when you fall in love and have a mistress or a wife and children to look after, it will all seem easier." He opened the door but stopped on the threshold. "Surround yourself with human beings, my dear. They are easier to fight for than principles." He laughed. "But don't let me down and become human yourself. We would lose such a wonderful machine." With a wave of his hand he shut the door. — Ian Fleming

As a whole the world is more primitive today than it was fifty years ago. Certain backward areas have advanced, and various devices, always in some way connected with warfare and police espionage, have been developed, but experiment and invention have largely stopped, and the ravages of the atomic war of the Nineteen-fifties have never been fully repaired. — George Orwell

It is getting to the point where the mark of international distinction and service to humanity is no longer the Nobel Peace Price, but an espionage indictment from the US Department of Justice. — Julian Assange

The common theme here was contempt: a poisonous disregard for human life. For Vladimir Putin's critics have an uncanny habit of turning up dead. — Luke Harding

Because there are little to no consequences for conducting cyberattacks, criminals and nation-states are becoming bolder in their threats and behavior. Russia, China, North Korea and Iran are increasingly hacking into U.S. companies and government networks for espionage purposes or financial gain. — Michael McCaul

The nations, of course, that are most at risk of a destructive digital attack are the ones with the greatest connectivity. Marcus Ranum, one of the early innovators of the computer firewall, called Stuxnet 'a stone thrown by people who live in a glass house'. — Kim Zetter

Gardington was made over to me once, by the Crown. It's one of their standard good-conduct prizes for espionage.'

Philippa said, rather blankly, 'I thought you were spying at that time for Scotland.'

'Well, I wasn't spying for England,' Lymond said. — Dorothy Dunnett

You could be the perfect spy. All you need is a cause. — John Le Carre

Like a black hole, NSA pulls in every signal that comes near, but no electron is ever allowed to escape. — James Bamford

The CIA's offices in London were no secret to the MI6. In fact, the two agencies were practically kissing cousins. — Kenneth Eade

Truth be told, I've seen ye watching me, staring. Your eyes tell me what ye are thinking." When she stiffened, he leaned in closer. "I think ye wonder what lies beneath my kilt. If ye ask me nicely, mayhap I'll show ye. But ye'll have to say please. — Victoria Roberts

The neighbourhood is a place of ... intrigue and emotional espionage, where when two people stop to talk on the street their tongues are like the two halves of a scissor coming together, cutting reputations and good names to shreds. — Nadeem Aslam

You couldn't trust anyone or anything that belonged to the world of espionage. — Anthony Horowitz

The majority of terrorist attacks that have been disrupted in the United States have been disrupted due to things like the Time Square bomber, who was caught by a hotdog vendor, not a mass surveillance program, not a cyber-espionage campaign. — Edward Snowden