34 quotes found
“If you agree to work for us, half the time you won't know the purpose of your duties . . . and when we do explain, we might not be telling the truth. But that's the real world, folks . . .”
“There's no way out," he announced with satisfaction, "and no amount of wishful dreaming will produce one. The demon won't go back in its bottle, the face-off is for ever, the embrace gets tighter a...”
“This is a war," Lemas replied. "It's graphic and unpleasant because it's fought on a tiny scale, at close range; fought with a wastage of innocent life sometimes, I admit. But it's nothing, nothing...”
“Nothing can stop an enemy from picking wireless messages out of the free air - and nothing did.”
“[Blinker] Hall, operating on the quaint theory that the Navy might be needed for battle and that whatever increased the ship's efficiency was a criterion for change, had continued trampling on the ...”
“Spy' is such a short ugly word. I prefer 'espionage.' Those extra three syllables really say something.”
“For a moment he came near to sharing their incredible beliefit would do no harm to mutter a prayer of thanks to the God of his childhood, the God of the Common and the castle, that no ill had yet c...”
“Limp finally spoke. Do you think you could kill a person and not get all crazy about it?”
“Grandpa said that we could solve a lot of the worlds problems if we considered cats and dogs edible. Like the neighbors dog who goes to the bathroom in his flower garden. And know what else?”
“It is often very useful for others to think you less intelligent than you are," Benedict said, his tone amused. "It works particularly well against those who aren't as intelligent as you in the fir...”
“This formidable officine dates from Peter the Great, who formed it in 1697...its historic origins must, however, be looked for much earlier; one finds them in the byzantine traditions and in the op...”
“The two smallest boys were cut down first, bodies bounding in different directions as they were shot from opposite sides of the field, like pinballs caught in a tight corner.”
“We have to live without sympathy, don't we? That's impossible of course. We act it to one another, all this hardness; but we aren't like that really, I mean...one can't be out in the cold all the t...”
“Now that little problem of yours, this business of not knowing good men from bad men and villains from heroes and so forth...There's still plenty for you to do. And you'll do it. And when you fall ...”
“Eyes closed, she let her pain float away with the prayers, higher and higher, around the mosque's minarets, and up to the sky. She thought about the old Arabic saying that a woman has only two exit...”
“He tried to recall the look of her eyes the day they first met. He closed his eyes and concentrated, but as he envisioned Kalila's car passing by, he couldn't decide if it was a memory or a dream.”
“The professor stared straight ahead. He felt Husam's eyes upon him. He clenched his hands together tightly, lest their shaking reveal everything.”
“A man who lives a part, not to others but alone, is exposed to obvious psychological dangers. In itself the practice of deception is not particularly exacting. It is a matter of experience, a profe...”
“Society tends to stick labels on everything and everyone. The label that is given to you will stick with you for a lifetime.”
“Espionage is the world's second oldest profession.”
