But despite such energetic mental exercise, the ghosts of time present would intrude and drive his dreams away. It was Ann who had robbed him of his peace, Ann who had once made the present so important and taught him the habit of reality, and when she went there was nothing.
John Le CarréTag: love love-hurts
She had the experience to suffer with discretion.
John Le CarréTag: contentment dignity composure
To dream in doctrines, how tidy!
John Le CarréTag: inspiration rules legalism formality
When a problem threatens to engulf you, there's nothing like irrelevant detail to keep your head above water.
John Le CarréTag: problems details attitude-toward-life
Merridew might not have been the slenderest of men or the tallest. But he had grip, he had cunning and like many fat men he had unexpected resources of indignation which he was able to turn on like a flood when they were needed.
John Le CarréTag: fat-men
For a long moment, while Brock stood off observing them, Ned and Barley appraised one another as only Englishmen can who are of the same height and class and shape of head.
John Le CarréTag: englishmen head-shape
And from there, he wandered off into an argument with Friedrich Schiller's grandiose statement that human stupidity was what the gods fought in vain. Not so, in Toby's opinion, and no excuse for anybody, whether god or man. What the gods and all reasonable humans fought in vain wasn't stupidity at all. It was sheer, wanton, bloody indifference to anybody's interests but their own.
John Le CarréAfterwards 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 CarréTag: murder spy secret-service
In a civilized country you can never tell.
John Le CarréBut gossip must see its characters
in black and white, equip them with
sins and motives easily conveyed in
the shorthand of conversation.
Tag: human-behaviour
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