"A spy, like a writer, lives outside the mainstream population. He steals his experience through bribes and reconstructs it.“

-John le Carre

posted in Experience

John le Carre quote on Experience: "A spy, like a writer, lives outside the mainstream population. He steals his experience th..." - Aesthetic Wallpaper & Wisdom

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"The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous. But neither, in my experience, do we ever reach a plane of detachment regarding our parents, however wise and old we may become. To pretend otherwise is to cheat."

-John le Carre

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"I worked for MI6 in the Sixties, during the great witch-hunts, when the shared paranoia of the Cold War gripped the services."

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"In every war zone that I've been in, there has been a reality and then there has been the public perception of why the war was being fought. In every crisis, the issues have been far more complex than the public has been allowed to know."

-John le Carre

"Most people like to read about intrigue and spies. I hope to provide a metaphor for the average reader's daily life. Most of us live in a slightly conspiratorial relationship with our employer and perhaps with our marriage."

-John le Carre

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"The Secret Intelligence Service I knew occupied dusky suites of little rooms opposite St James's Park Tube station in London."

-John le Carre

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"It's part of a writer's profession, as it's part of a spy's profession, to prey on the community to which he's attached, to take away information - often in secret - and to translate that into intelligence for his masters, whether it's his readership or his spy masters. And I think that both professions are perhaps rather lonely."

-John le Carre

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"Life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards."

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"We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them."

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"The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience."

-Emily Dickinson

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"Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print experience is what you get when you don't."

-Pete Seeger

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"Talking with you is sort of the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience."

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"Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession."

-George Washington

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