Quotes

[describing how the spies he writes about are different than the "super-hero" secret agent in the James Bond mold] A mostly aging, weary, unromantic lot, prone to distressing stomach ailments and having troubles with their wives.

Writers are two-home men--they want a place outside and a place within.

[describing a particularly loathsome character in 'A Delicate Truth'] Jay Crispin was your normal, rootless, amoral, plausible, half-educated, nicely spoken frozen adolescent in a bespoke suit, with an unappeasable craving for money, power and respect, regardless where he got them from.

There's probably nobody more redundant in the film world than a writer of origin hanging around the set of his movie, as I've learned to my cost. Alec Guinness actually did me the favor of having me shown off the set of the BBC's TV adaptation of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy." All I was wanting to do was radiate my admiration, but Alec said my glare was too intense.

15 years ago this was a great Country in which to have a heart attack in the street.

[on his time with British intelligence] Patriotism was easily tapped in those days. It was always extraordinary how ready people were. On special operations, banging on a door in a hurry, saying "We need to get up to that window and look down onto the street - oh, I'm from MI5," you'd show some stupid piece of card, and they'd say "Oh yes, can I bring you a cup of tea?"

[2017, on discovering that his father had been an arms dealer] He constantly surprises long after his death.

Peter was overmatched and he lost. His agents were hanged. No one recovers entirely from that sort of thing. That is, I wouldn't trust a man who did

[on his time with MI6 before the exposure of Kim Philby] We didn't even show passes to go in and out of the building. Our faces were known and I don't remember ever being stopped. The janitors at the entrance would merely say, 'Good morning.' In a way, the trust invested in us was charming.

If you live in secrecy, you think in secrecy. It is the very nature of the life you lead as an intelligence officer in a secret room that the ordinary winds of common sense don't blow through it. You are constantly looking to relate to your enemy in intellectual, adversarial and conspiratorial terms.

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

[on espionage literature] The whole of the future is as yet unwritten, whereas during the Cold War it seemed pre-written. So it's back to the Ambler era. I think the spy story's going to be a damn sight more fun in the future. We lazy writers are going to have to pack our bags and go to where the new action is and start thinking a little more realistically about the way it's changing.

[speaking in 2017 about his neighbors] The Cornish don't give a damn for celebrity. If they even know what I do they haven't read it, or if they have read it they make a point of not being impressed by it, and that is enormously soothing.

[on working with book editor Robert Gottlieb] Bob will tell me... where he feels slightly disappointed... where the satisfactions are not what he expected... And I will say, OK, for the moment I disagree because I'm in love with every word I've written, but I'll rake it over and lick my wounds,... in which case we will leave the matter in suspense until I recognize that he is right. In no case have I ever regretted taking Bob's advice. In all the large things, he's always been right.

[on Kim Philby] A nasty little establishment traitor with a revolting father, a fake stammer and an anguished sexuality who spent his life getting his own back on the England that made him.

[on the Labour Party] They have this Leninist element and they have this huge appetite to level society. I've always believed, though ironically it's not the way I've voted, that it's compassionate conservatism that in the end could, for example, integrate the private schooling system.