Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

John le Carré ↗

Some highlights

It’s the oldest question of all, George. ::Who can spy on the spies?::

The more identities a man has, the more they express the person they conceal.

“There are always a dozen reasons for doing nothing,” Ann liked to say–it was a favourite apologia, indeed, for many of her misdemeanours. "There is only one reason for doing something. And that's because you want to." Or have to? Ann would furiously deny it: coercion, she would say, is just another word for doing what you want; or for not doing what you are afraid of.

there was no future: there was only a continued slide into still more terrifying versions of the present.

Reason as motive, or reason as logic, or reason as a way of life?