It's easy to forget what intelligence consists of: luck and speculation. Here and there a windfall, here and there a scoop.

It's death, that's what I'm suffering from. The systematic encroachment of the big D.

There is a terrible alienation in the ordinary man between what he is being told and what he secretly believes.

Treason is very much a matter of habit, Smiley decided.

The cold war provided the perfect excuse for Western governments to plunder and exploit the Third World in the name of freedom; to rig its elections, bribe its politicians, appoint its tyrants and, by every sophisticated means of persuasion and interference, stunt the emergence of young democracies in the name of democracy.

A good writer is an expert on nothing except himself. And on that subject, if he is wise, he holds his tongue.

It's a principle of mine to come into the story as late as possible, and to tell it as fast as you can.