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"Every writer knows he is spurious; every fiction writer would rather be credible than authentic."
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"I also read modern novels - I have just had to read 60 as I am one of the judges for the Orange Fiction Prize."

"CALVIN:Our hero regains consciousness at the feet of a sarcastic alien."

"Whoever knows that the mind is a fiction and devoid of anything real knows that his own mind neither exists nor doesn't exist."

"I learned to write fiction the way I learned to read fiction - by skipping the parts that bored me."

"And then I met Jerry and he's such a creative fiction writer, and I don't know if there's ever been a team put together the way we are - where one person does the theological way out and suggestions, and the other person goes into the cave and does the fiction writing."

"And if we can imagine the art of fiction come alive and standing in our midst, she would undoubtedly bid us break her and bully her, as well as honour and love her, for so her youth is renewed and her sovereignty assured."
Explore more quotes by John Le Carre


"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."


"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."


"I think I'm in the same mood as ever, but in some ways more mature. I guess you could say that, at 65, when you've seen the world shape up as I have, there are only two things you can do: laugh or kill yourself."


"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."


"Until we have a better relationship between private performance and the public truth, as was demonstrated with Watergate, we as the public are absolutely right to remain suspicious, contemptuous even, of the secrecy and the misinformation which is the digest of our news."


"During the Cold War, we lived in coded times when it wasn't easy and there were shades of grey and ambiguity."


"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."
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