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

As our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way.

It struck him as a bit unfair that, at the age of eight, he should have manifested the same sense of solitude that haunted him at forty-three.

I don't know whether it's age or maturity, but I certainly find myself committed more and more to the looser forms of Western democracy at any price.

People are very secretive - secret even from themselves.

Each my book feels like my last book. And then I think, like a dedicated alcoholic, that one more won't do me any harm.

Power expands through the distribution of secrecy.