The Secret Intelligence Service I knew occupied dusky suites of little rooms opposite St James's Park Tube station in London.

I can't think of anybody worse to live with.

Ideologies have no heart of their own. They're the whores and angels of our striving selves.

God is in his Heaven and the first night was a wow.

[My novels] introduce levels of intelligence ... moral doubt [and] self-doubt, which may not pertain [to real-world espionage].

Yet it's not for want of future that I'm here, he thought. It's for want of a present.

The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous. But neither, in my experience, do we ever reach a plane of detachment regarding our parents, however wise and old we may become. To pretend otherwise is to cheat.