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"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."
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"Always in my books, I like to throw that rogue element into a stable situation and then see what happens."
"I have always read all the latest cookery books and magazines, from all over the world."
"Books are standing counselors and preachers, always at hand, and always disinterested; having this advantage over oral instructors, that they are ready to repeat their lesson as often as we please."
"Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost."
"What if I were seeking a hardcopy? A book I can bury my nose in metaphorically and literally if I'm a self-confessed book-sniffer and proud to say so."
"In my books I might hold the mirror to my own face. If others would like to borrow the mirror, they're welcome. The books aren't there to accuse others - merely to raise issues and keep the debates alive."
"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested."
Explore more quotes by John Le Carre
"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."
"During the Cold War, we lived in coded times when it wasn't easy and there were shades of grey and ambiguity."
"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."
"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."
"A spy, like a writer, lives outside the mainstream population. He steals his experience through bribes and reconstructs it."
"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."
"I don't think that there are very many good writers who don't live without a sense of tension. If they haven't got one immediately available to them, then they usually manage to manufacture it in their private lives."
"I think that where I've watched a movie go wrong, it's usually because the dread committee has been interfering with it."
"People who've had very unhappy childhoods are pretty good at inventing themselves. If nobody invents you for yourself, nothing is left but to invent yourself for others."
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