In my day, MI6 - which I called the Circus in the books - stank of wartime nostalgia. People were defined by secret cachet: one man did something absolutely extraordinary in Norway; another was the darling of the French Resistance. We didn't even show passes to go in and out of the building.
Tags: go, day, people, man

Other Quotes by "John le Carre"

In every war zone that I've been in, there has been a reality and then there has been the public perception of why the war was being fought. In every crisis, the issues have been far more complex than the public has been allowed to know.
Tags: more, know, reality, war
Thank heaven, though, one of the few mistakes I haven't made is to talk about the unwritten book.
Tags: talk, book, mistakes, heaven
But there is a big difference in working for the West and working for a totalitarian state.
Tags: working, state, difference, big
There are some subjects that can only be tackled in fiction.
Tags: subjects, fiction, some, only
I grew up in a completely bookless household. It was my father's boast that he had never read a book from end to end. I don't remember any of his ladies being bookish. So I was entirely dependent on my schoolteachers for my early reading with the exception of 'The Wind in the Willows,' which a stepmother read to me when I was in hospital.
Tags: never, wind, father, me
View More by "John le Carre"