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

I am still making order out of chaos by reinvention.

Let's all pretend to be someone else, and then perhaps we'll find out who we are.

It is also the pardonable vanity of lonely people everywhere to assume that they have no counterparts.

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

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

Yet it's not for want of future that I'm here, he thought. It's for want of a present.