Len Deighton > Quotes

“Do you ever make silly mistakes? It is one of my very few creative activities.”
― Len Deighton

“Perhaps all fear is worse than reality, just as all hope is better than fulfilment.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“What Douglas had once seen as the attractive over-confidence of youth, now looked more like unyielding selfishness.”
― Len Deighton

“When they ask me to become president of the United States I'm going to say, "Except for Washington D.C.”
― Len Deighton, Spy Hook

“Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Yes? Well socialism is exactly the reverse.”
― Len Deighton, The Harry Palmer Quartet

“That was one of the problems of marrying into wealth; there were no luxuries.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“He had a long thin nose, a moustache like flock wallpaper, sparse, carefully combed hair, and the complexion of a Hovis loaf.”
― Len Deighton, The Ipcress File

“It doesn’t take much to make the daily round with one’s employer work smoothly. A couple of ‘yessirs’ when you know that ‘not on your life’ is the thing to say. A few expressions of doubt about things you’ve spent your life perfecting. Forgetting to make use of the information that negates his hastily formed but deliciously convenient theories. It doesn’t take much but it takes about 98.5 per cent more than I’ve ever considered giving”
― Len Deighton

“When the end is lawful the means are also lawful,”
― Len Deighton, The Harry Palmer Quartet

“Here in Prague they say that although the traffic police are communists the drivers are fascists, which would be all right if it were not that the pedestrians are anarchists.”
― Len Deighton, Funeral in Berlin

“England's civil war had ended in a consensus as the English discovered that they hated foreigners more than they hated their own countrymen.”
― Len Deighton, Blood, Tears and Folly: An Objective Look at World War II

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
― Len Deighton, Faith

“Perhaps hell is like that; a discordant confusion of anxious souls. Some argued, some slept, some shouted, some wept, some wrote, some sketched and many conspired about their coming interrogation. But mostly they did no more than stare into space, eyes unfocused as they tried to see tomorrow.”
― Len Deighton, SS-GB

“You’re joking, sir.’ ‘I never joke, Chico. The truth is quite adequately hilarious.”
― Len Deighton, The Harry Palmer Quartet

“I never really trust drinking water anywhere but Scotland; and I’ve never been to Scotland. I”
― Len Deighton, Mexico Set

“Tessa was sincere but shallow; she was loving but mercurial; she was an exhibitionist without enough confidence to be an actor. While Fiona displayed all the characteristics of elder children: stability, confidence, intellect in abundance, and that cold reserve with which to judge all the shortcomings of the world.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“bis peccare in bello non licet – in war two blunders aren’t permitted.”
― Len Deighton, The Harry Palmer Quartet

“Communist," he repeated. "You may have heard someone in a concentration admit to being a murderer and many agreed that they had been spies. A prisoner would sometimes even confess to having at one time - for a short while - been a Jew. But a communist, no. No one would ever let that word pass their lips.”
― Len Deighton, Funeral in Berlin

“I think Jay is in import and export business as his cards say, but he finally found that the second most valuable commodity today is information."
"And?"
"The most valuable?"
"People with information," I suggested.”
― Len Deighton, The Ipcress File

“because morning gives a dimension of magic to any place it was soft and sharp at the same time.”
― Len Deighton, The Harry Palmer Quartet

“Neither was this the ordinary world of supply and demand; it was a world of abundance.”
― Len Deighton, Spy Line

“Why do these people love you, Archer? Is it simply because you show little or no response to their affection?”
― Len Deighton, SS-GB

“Did you ever say hello to a girl you almost married long ago? Did she smile the same captivating smile, and give your arm a hug in a gesture you’d almost forgotten? Did the wrinkles as she smiled make you wonder what marvellous times you’d missed? That’s how I felt about Berlin every time I came back here.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“He remembered the PM saying that every Russian is at heart a chess-player, and every American at heart a public-relations man. Well, Bret Rensselaer’s zeal did nothing to disprove that one. The sheer audacity of the scheme plus Bret’s enthusiasm was enough to persuade him that it was worth a try. Bret nodded to acknowledge the compliment.”
― Len Deighton, Spy Sinker

“His profusion of long lank yellow hair hung heavily across his head like a Shrove Tuesday mishap.”
― Len Deighton, The Harry Palmer Quartet

“his face was 11 A.M. November 11th.”
― Len Deighton, The Harry Palmer Quartet

“It’s easy to forgive the summer rain; like first love, white lies or blarney, there’s no malignity in it.”
― Len Deighton, The Spy Quartet: An Expensive Place to Die, Spy Story, Yesterday’s Spy, Twinkle Twinkle Little Spy

“I’d long ago learned that it is only the very devout who toy with heresy. It’s only the Jesuit who complains of the Pope, only the devoted parent who ridicules his child, only the super rich who pick up pennies from the gutter. And in East Berlin it is only the truly faithful who speak treason with such self-assurance.”
― Len Deighton, Berlin Game

“rather split his trousers than an infinitive.”
― Len Deighton, The Harry Palmer Quartet

“who draws a sword against a prince must throw away the scabbard’.”
― Len Deighton, Blood, Tears and Folly: An Objective Look at World War II