Why did I desert Labour? Total bloody disillusionment. The party was a corpse. It had no ideology, it became detached, old, spineless and needed to go.
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 CarreIn the last 15 or 20 years, I've watched the British press simply go to hell. There seems to be no limit, no depths to which the tabloids won't sink. I don't know who these people are but they're little pigs.
John le CarreIdeologies have no heart of their own. They're the whores and angels of our striving selves.
John le CarreAfter all, if you make your enemy look like a fool, you lose the justification for engaging him.
John le CarreHow Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America's anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre.
John le Carre