A good writer can watch a cat pad across the street and know what it is to be pounced upon by a Bengal tiger.
John le CarreI think that most of my books are part of some process of self-education, often about the places I go to. Most of all, they are about the peculiar tension between institutional loyalty and loyalty to oneself; the mystery of patriotism, for a Brit of my age and generation, where it runs, how it should be defined, what it's worth and what a corrupting force it can be when misapplied. All that stuff is just in me and it comes out in the characters. I don't mean to preach, but I know I do, and I'm a very flawed person. It's quite ridiculous.
John le CarreBut I think the real tension lies in the relationship between what you might call the pursuer and his quarry, whether it's the writer or the spy.
John le CarreFor all the flailing and huffing and puffing, there is a kind of fatality about the process of war-making and the excuses we find for it, the consolation of belligerence in politics.
John le Carre