John le Carre
John le Carre
David John Moore Cornwellis a British author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, he worked for the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service, and began writing novels under a pen name. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, became an international best-seller, and remains one of his best-known works. Following the success of this novel, he left MI6 to become a full-time author...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth19 October 1931
dies
Let's die of it before we're too old.
doing-nothing facts littles
The fact that you can only do a little is no excuse for doing nothing.
fake-people lying reality
We lie to one another every day, in the sweetest way, often unconsciously. We dress ourselves and compose ourselves in order to present ourselves to one another.
years political spy
We have learned in recent years to translate almost all of political life in terms of conspiracy. And the spy novel, as never before, really, has come into its own.
war reality issues
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.
fool literature language
Fools, most linguists. Damn all to say in one language, so they learn another and say damn all in that.
father book ends
I grew up in a completely bookless household. It was my father's boast that he had never read a book from end to end.
mean messages storytelling
I mean, I'm in the business of storytelling, not message making.
america literature remember
America has entered one of its periods of historic madness, but this is the worst I can remember.
cutting age way
By the age of 9 or 10, I knew that I had to cut my own cloth and make my own way.
average people spy
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.
writing work-out imagination
Novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion. They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're dressing the scene, they're working out where the energy of the scene is coming from and they're also relying tremendously on the creative imagination of the reader.
book rights decision
I made a series of wrong decisions about moderately recent books, and I've sold the rights to studios for ridiculous amounts of money and the films have never been made. That's the saddest thing of all, because they're locked up and no one else can make them.
german-language bumblebees literature
I taught principally German language and literature at Eton. But any master with private pupils must be prepared to teach anything they ask for. That can be as diverse as the early paintings of Salvador Dali or how bumblebees manage to fly.