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"Every writer knows he is spurious; every fiction writer would rather be credible than authentic."
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"Science fiction, to me, has not only things that wouldn't happen, but other planets."

"Sometime later the islanders on a little rimward atoll were amazed to find, washed into their little local lagoon, the wave-rocked corpse of a hideous sea monster, all beaks, eyes and tentacles. They were further astonished at its size, since it was rather larger than their village. But their surprise was tiny compared to the huge, stricken expression on the face of the dead monster, which appeared to be have been trampled to death."

"In the best fiction, the language itself can become almost invisible."

"There are people who think that things that happen in fiction do not really happen. These people are wrong."

"Vampires did not avoid mirrors because they cast no reflection but because mirrors became so unflattering with the illusion of fuzzy focus wrenched away."

"Villainessa Tittel was a hired killer, an assassin by trade. She had enjoyed the best education and had been trained by assassins who had (until then at least) been considered the best in the business. She had turned to 'cleaning' as an occupation because she really enjoyed endings more than beginnings " and anyway, she didn't need to know her mark's entire pedigree or life's story, or to have some kind of facetious moral justification just to collect her fee. Unsurprisingly, when she did read " on those rare occasions " her books were always dog-eared from the back."

"Literary fiction, as a strict genre, is all but dead. Meanwhile, most genres flourish."
Explore more quotes by John Le Carre


"When you're my age and you see a story, you better go for it pretty quickly. I'd just like to get a few more novels under my belt."


"The longing we have to communicate cleanly and directly with people is always obstructed by qualifications and often with concern about how our messages will be received."


"If I had to put a name to it, I would wish that all my books were entertainments. I think the first thing you've got to do is grab the reader by the ear, and make him sit down and listen. Make him laugh, make him feel. We all want to be entertained at a very high level."


"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."


"I think that where I've watched a movie go wrong, it's usually because the dread committee has been interfering with it."
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