Leamas Le Quotes & Sayings

Ashe, Kiever, Peters; that was a progression in quality, in authority, which to Leamas was axiomatic of the hierarchy of an intelligence network. It was also, he suspected, a progression in ideology. Ashe, the mercenary, Kiever the fellow traveler, and now Peters, for whom the end and the means were identical. — John Le Carre

A long novitiate of acquaintance should precede the vows of friendship. — Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Leamas saw. He saw the long road outside
Rotterdam, the long straight road beside the
dunes, and the stream of refugees moving
along it; saw the little aeroplane miles away,
the procession stop and look towards it; and
the plane coming in, nearly over the dunes;
saw the chaos, the meaningless hell, as the
bombs hit the road.
"I can't talk like this, Control," Leamas
said at last. "What do you want me to do? — John Le Carre

How delightful! Dunford had just come into an unexpected inheritance. She rather hoped it was something good. One of her friends had just unwillingly inherited thirty-seven cats. — Julia Quinn

There are times when you devote yourself to a higher cause than personal safety. — John Glenn

Well, you never can tell with a twister. They are as mean, as ornery, and as unpredictable as an unhappy woman. — John Joseph Adams

If you feel like it's hard to be friends with women, consider that maybe women aren't the problem. Maybe it's just you. — Roxane Gay

Beside me, Richie chimed in. "What the ... Max. there's a girl on your face."
Sara pulled back and her eyes widened in realization. "Oh, crap."
"Calm down," I told her quietly. "No one here gives a fuck who we are. They hardly remember my name every week."
"Patently untrue," Richie said. "Your name is Twat."
I tilted my head to him, smiling at Sara. "Like I said. — Christina Lauren

I am in myself so little that what they do with me scarcely interests me. — Antonio Porchia

My father, who was jailed for stealing on more than one occasion, just abandoned his fatherly responsibilities and disappeared. I grew up working from the time I was nine years of age. Money was a big issue everywhere I lived. — Wayne Dyer

Ashe was typical of that strata of mankind which conducts its human relationships according to a principle of challenge and response. Where there was softness, he would advance; where he found resistance, retreat. Having himself no particular opinions or tastes he relied upon whatever conformed with those of his companion. He was as ready to drink tea at Fortnum's as beer at the Prospect of Whitby; he would listen to military music in St. James's Park or jazz in Compton Street cellar; his voice would tremble with sympathy when he spoke of Sharpeville, or with indignation at the growth of Britain's colored population. To Leamas this observably passive role was repellent; it brought out the bully in him, so that he would lead the other gently into a position where he was committed, and then himself withdraw, so that Ashe was constantly scampering back from some cul-de-sac into which Leamas had enticed him. — John Le Carre

They made her think of her grandmere, who had lost her husband and two of her sons in the war. She had cried every day for a year, walking the same stretch of road from her home to the train station, waiting for them to come home. Her tears fell as black stones to the ground, and to this day those stones lodged in car tires and let all the air out slowly in a wail. — Sarah Addison Allen

Most of all he asked about their philosophy. To Leamas that was the most difficult question of all. 'What do you mean, a philosophy?' he replied. 'We're not Marxists, we're nothing. Just people.' 'Are you Christians, then?' 'Not many, I shouldn't think. I don't know many.' 'What makes them do it, then?' Fiedler persisted. 'They must have a philosophy.' 'Why must they? Perhaps they don't know, don't even care. Not everyone has a philosophy,' Leamas answered, a little helplessly. — John Le Carre

In the serene weather of the tropics it is exceedingly pleasant - the mast-head; nay, to a dreamy meditative man it is delightful. There you stand, a hundred feet above the silent decks, striding along the deep, as if the masts were gigantic stilts, while beneath you and between your legs, as it were, swim the hugest monsters of the sea, even as ships once sailed between the boots of the famous Colossus at old Rhodes. — Herman Melville

Those who will not take the trouble to think for themselves, have always somebody that thinks for them; and the difficulty in writing is to please those from whom others learn to be pleased. — Samuel Johnson

We must choose our allegiances carefully, for there is no going back on them. — Jayne Castel