Charles Cumming > Quotes

“I am not anti-American,' he said. 'I just despise the current American administration. I despair that Bush has made ordinary, decent people all over the world think twice about what was once, and still could be again, a great country, when what happened on September 11th should have made ordinary, decent people all over the world embrace America as never before. I don't like it that neo-conservative politicians bully their so-called allies while playing to the worst, racist instincts of their own bewildered electorate. I don't like it that we live in an era where to be anti-war is to be anti-American, to be pro-Palestine is to be anti-Semitic, to be critical of Blair is somehow to be supportive of Putin and Chirac. All anybody is asking for in this so-called age of terror is some leadership. Yet everywhere you look in public life there is no truth, no courage, no dignity to speak of.”
― Charles Cumming, Typhoon

“The first thing you should know about people is that you don’t know the first thing about them.”
― Charles Cumming, The Spanish Game

“He believed in the unarguable notion that if a young person is lucky enough to read the right books at the right time in the company of the right teacher, it will change their life forever.”
― Charles Cumming, The Trinity Six

“A great love affair makes us feel alive, vivid and free. But that feeling comes at a price. We are never truly happy while we are at the mercy of another person.”
― Charles Cumming, A Divided Spy

“Honor among thieves, perhaps. Honor among spies, never.”
― Charles Cumming, A Divided Spy

“grave. ‘I don’t know,’ Akim replied,”
― Charles Cumming, A Foreign Country

“You know, you should never catch a spy. Discover him and then control him, but never catch him. A spy causes far more trouble when he’s caught. Harold Macmillan”
― Charles Cumming, The Trinity Six

“Akim replied,”
― Charles Cumming, A Foreign Country

“James Clavell, Tai-Pan and Noble House, steamy sagas of corporate greed set in colonial-era Hong Kong. With adolescence came Empire of the Sun,”
― Charles Cumming, Typhoon: A gripping historical fiction spy thriller

“Do you remember that trend in house music from about twenty years ago, monks chanting over a drum machine?’ Kite lit a cigarette and said that he did; Martha had often ridiculed Xavier for playing the CDs at parties in the early nineties. He remembered the name of the band: ‘Enigma’. ‘That was the vibe in the”
― Charles Cumming, Judas 62

“As a matter of fact, I agree with almost everything you’ve just said,’ he replied. ‘I’ve never understood why the Americans have targeted Iran for so long, unless it’s revenge for the humiliation of the embassy siege, which happened outside the living memory of more than three-quarters of the population. Maybe it’s because you stoked the insurgency in Iraq or bankrolled Hizbollah for thirty years. How do I know? The Iranian government hates Israel. A lot of Americans don’t hate Israel. I’m not clairvoyant, but could that have something to do with it? There’s no point in asking me these questions. I’m not a politician, Ramin. I’m just a guy who reads the Economist and the New York Times. There’s no point in keeping me here if you think I’m some kind of spokesman for the British government. These are questions you should be asking in Downing Street or, better still, Washington.”
― Charles Cumming, BOX 88: A Novel

“America finished.’ Aranov tapped his neck in the Russian way of indicating drunkenness. ‘Whole country go crazy, psychotic. Two cults. One the Trump cult, the other the cult of the self-righteous.”
― Charles Cumming, Judas 62

“process”
― Charles Cumming, The Complete Spy Thrillers: A Colder War, A Foreign Country, The Trinity Six, Typhoon, The Spanish Game, The Hidden Man and A Spy by Nature

“A noble, articulate, mixed-race liberal icon takes over the Presidency of the United States. Does he make the world a better place? No, he does not. A narcissistic sociopath with a thin skin and a bad dye job disgraces the Presidency of the United States. Does he make the world a worse place? No, he does not.”
― Charles Cumming, The Moroccan Girl

“green”
― Charles Cumming, BOX 88

“By making stupid people feel better about their stupidity. By allowing bigots to think they were justified in making anti-Semitic statements, saying that it was OK to hate women, to be aggrieved about people of color, about immigrants.”
― Charles Cumming, The Moroccan Girl

“We have as many personalities as we have friends’
Ralph Waldo Emerson”
― Charles Cumming, BOX 88: A Novel

“drawing to an inevitable end. ‘I so wish we could meet again,’ she said. Kell was aware of the cruel absurdity of his”
― Charles Cumming, A Colder War

“You know, when people die, everybody writes, don’t they?’ he said. McCreery looked slightly confused. ‘I mean, the husband, the wife, they always get a letter. Then you write to the children, to the parents if they had any, to all the close relatives of the person who’s died. But the friends just get left behind. Nobody thinks of them. They’ve maybe just lost the one person in the world that they could confide in, someone where the roots might have gone even deeper than a marriage. A friend from school. A friend from childhood. But nobody thinks of them. They just get forgotten.”
― Charles Cumming, The Hidden Man

“With the best will in the world, Sam, nobody really cares about journalists getting bumped off in Russia. Your average punter doesn’t have a clue who Peter the Great is. Does he play for Liverpool? Was he knocked out in the final of Britain’s Got Talent?”
― Charles Cumming, The Trinity Six

“Sense of an Ending”
― Charles Cumming, A Colder War

“I learned that spying isn’t about strengths in human nature – ideological conviction, duty, loyalty to one’s country. Spying is about weaknesses – the lust for money, for status, for sex. This is the guilty secret of our secret trade.’ Tanya”
― Charles Cumming, The Trinity Six

“Work so boring during Covid. I do nothing except read Ian Rankin Rebus,”
― Charles Cumming, Judas 62

“Believe it or not, it’s a question of honesty,” he said. “If a person is clear about what they want to achieve, if they set about achieving that goal objectively and with precision, more often than not they will succeed.”
― Charles Cumming, A Colder War

“I sometimes think that the Russian character is the end of kindness, you know? The end of everything that is nice and good in this world.”
― Charles Cumming, A Divided Spy

“Lachlan Kite woke at sunrise, crept out of bed, changed into a pair of shorts and running shoes and set out on a four-mile loop around the hills encircling the cottage in Sussex. The news of Xavier’s death had hit him as hard as anything he could recall since the sudden loss of Michael Strawson, his mentor and father figure, to a cancer of the liver which had ripped through him in the space of a few months. Though he had seen Xavier only fitfully over the previous ten years, Kite felt a personal sense of responsibility for his death which was as inescapable as it was illogical and undeserved. Usually, pounding the paths around the cottage, feeling the soft winter ground beneath his feet, he could switch the world off and gain respite from whatever problems or challenges might face him upon his return. Kite had run throughout his adult life—in Voronezh and Houston, in Edinburgh and Shanghai—for just this reason: not simply to stay fit and to burn off the pasta and the pints, but for his own peace of mind, his psychological well-being. It was different today, just as it had been on the afternoon of Martha’s call when Kite had immediately left the cottage and run for seven unbroken miles, memories of Xavier erupting with every passing stride.”
― Charles Cumming, BOX 88: A Novel