Secret Service Quotes

“Me? Scrubbing blood from carpets? It would be like asking Nureyev to do the conga.”
― Kevin Ansbro, In the Shadow of Time

“This is a deep and uncomfortable paradox, which will not have escaped you; we can only defend democracy by being undemocratic. Every secret service knows this paradox.”
― Philip Pullman, La Belle Sauvage

“Afterwards Smiley always thought of that interview as a fan dance; a calculated progression of disclosures, each revealing different parts of a mysterious entity. Finally Steed-Asprey, who seemed to be Chairman, removed the last veil, and the truth stood before him in all its dazzling nakedness. He was being offered a post in what, for want of a better name, Steed-Asprey blushingly described as the Secret Service.”
― John le Carré, Call for the Dead

“Desperate people are dangerous people.”
― Bob Ritter, Breaking Tecumseh's Curse: The Real-life Adventures of the U.S. Secret Service Agent Who Tried to Change Tomorrow

“She was thankful that in her job, she didn’t have to choose sides—she fought against currency counterfeiters, stock and bond forgers, money launderers, diamond smugglers—in short, lowlifes like Spyro Leandrou who engaged in activities that were universally perceived as wrong.”
― Mike Wells, The Greek Trilogy, Book 2

“These secret service people always seemed to have time for sex however important their jobs might be.”
― Ian Fleming, Moonraker

“Kasoro za Uzi zilizofanya zisitumiwe tena na kikosi cha usalama cha rais wa Marekani ni kutokuwa na shabaha imara katika umbali mfupi (hutawanya risasi na huleta madhara makubwa katika umbali mfupi hivyo kuweza kudhuru hata watu wasiokuwa na hatia) na kutokuwa na uwezo wa kutoboa kinga ya risasi dhidi ya magaidi wanaotumia mavazi ya kuzuia risasi, wanaotishia usalama wa rais wa Marekani. Gaidi mwenye mavazi ya kuzuia risasi aliweza kumdhuru rais kwa maana ya USSS kushindwa kumdhibiti. Badala yake, sasa USSS wanatumia FNP90 – zenye uwezo wa kutoboa kinga ya risasi, na ambazo hazileti madhara makubwa katika umbali mfupi na katika umbali mrefu. Bunduki hizi, zenye uwezo wa kubeba risasi 100 katika chemba zake mbili za Kampuni ya Beta ('Century Magazines'), zilitumiwa na magaidi wa Kolonia Santita dhidi ya Vijana wa Tume na dhidi ya polisi wa Tume ya Dunia ya Kudhibiti Madawa ya Kulevya.”
― Enock Maregesi

“Some time ago N went over to Paris disguised as an opera singer, and he looked the part so well that the agent whom he was to meet thought he really was an opera singer and never went near him for a week. In fact, it turned out a little awkwardly, because one evening this agent saw a member of the French Cabinet dining at the Ritz and he looked so much like somebody disguised as an opera singer that this dam' fool of an agent went up and spoke to him. He was at once arrested by the French secret police, and there was nearly a most unpleasant scandal.”
― Compton Mackenzie, Water on the Brain

“The Secret Service that stays with the president of the United States everyday for the rest of their life is not only there to only protect the president from harm, they're there to make sure the president follows his orders given to him by his boss.”
― James Thomas Kesterson Jr

“Faith hadn't expected adulthood to be one endless game of whack-a-mole where all she did was beat into submission every new problem that popped up-all the while, standing still. Never going anywhere. Never changing the view.”
― Lynn H. Blackburn, Unknown Threat

“Several people warned me about taking on this role, you know. They seemed to think that there were easier ways of securing a seat in the Lords.”
― Mick Herron, Joe Country

“Here the walls have ears. Spies are stationed behind every drapery, curtain, arras. Your spies, the agents of your secret service: their assignment is to draft detailed reports on the palace conspiracies. The court teems with enemies, to such an extent that it is increasingly difficult to tell them from friends; it is known for sure that the conspiracy that will dethrone you will be made up of your ministers and officials. And you know that every secret service has been infiltrated by agents of the opposing secret service. Perhaps all the agents in your pay work also for the conspirators, are themselves conspirators; and thus you are obliged to continue paying them, to keep them quiet as long as possible.
Voluminous bundles of secret reports are turned out daily by electronic machines and laid at your feet on the steps of the throne. It is pointless for you to read them: your spies can only confirm the existence of the conspiracies, justifying the necessity of your espionage; and at the same time they must deny any immediate danger, to prove that their spying is effective. No one, for that matter, thinks you must read the reports delivered to you; the light in the throne room is inadequate for reading, and the assumption is that a king need not read anything, the king already knows what he has to know.”
― Italo Calvino

“Like the two best men I know thinking I’m worth making space for in their hearts isn’t the biggest honor of my life.”
― Tal Bauer, Secret Service

“I know that pose. Migraine incoming, Mach 2.”
― Tal Bauer, Secret Service

“I have been telling people for years the police are incompetent!”
― Steven Magee

“In 2024, a young twenty-year-old man showed the world how easy it was to outsmart the secret service and shoot a President of the USA.”
― Steven Magee

“Fortune follows the brave; misfortune eavesdrops.”
― Ljupka Cvetanova, Yet Another New Land