When you're my age and you see a story, you better go for it pretty quickly. I'd just like to get a few more novels under my belt.

Smiley was soaked to the skin and God as a punishment had removed all taxis from the face of London.

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

Love means having something to betray.

A committee is an animal with four back legs.

Those who are not with Mr. Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I'm dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam's downfall -- just not on Bush's terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.

George Smiley: [quoting an old letter from Bill Haydon about Jim Prideaux] He has that heavy quiet that commands. He's my other half. Between us we'd make one marvelous man. He asks nothing better than to be in my company or that of my wicked, divine friends, and I'm vastly tickled by the compliment. He's virgin, about eight foot tall, and built by the same firm that did Stonehenge