Spies Quotes

I think I’m always interested in the people who aren’t generals or master spies or royalty. The people caught in the crossfire.

Communism counts its opportunities in terms of decades – not of weeks. Its means of aggression consist not only of nuclear weapons and missiles with enormous boosters, and not only of spies, agents and terrorists, but of great masses of men and women, deluded by a common ideology which inspires them with a false hope.

I would have loved to have met some former spies, but they don’t readily advertise themselves unless they’re not living in Moscow, and even then. I’m sure I’ve met some without realizing it.

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

I love the combination of the words ‘spies’ and ‘Balkans.’ It’s like meat and potatoes.

Ghostery lets you spy on the spies in your computer. For each web page you visit, this extension uncloaks some – but not all – of the invisible tracking software that is working behind the scenes.

I served 10 years on the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, and I had the distinct privilege of meeting with real U.S. spies throughout the globe.

Mr. Snowden did not start out as a spy, and calling him one bends the term past recognition. Spies don’t give their secrets to journalists for free.

I just have this very simple idea about the rebel spies in the opening crawl of A ‘New Hope’ who steal the plans for the Death Star.

That world of spies and espionage, there’s a coldness to it. That’s what makes those worlds fascinating – and what makes le Carre’s work so interesting.

I go into Daunt Books in Marylebone every couple of weeks. My wife Sara demolishes books, but I only buy stuff occasionally. I like boys’ things, spies and the Cold War.

I went to grad school with the grand plan of getting my Ph.D. and writing weighty, Tudor-Stuart-set historical fiction – from which I emerged with a law degree and a series of light-hearted historical romances about flower-named spies during the Napoleonic wars.

I’m really attracted to anti-heroes, and I’m a little bit of a troublemaker myself, and a little bit of a rule-breaker, and I like spies.

You basically have a group of four spies who are chosen for a mission they feel for the fact of how competent they are and how their expertise and they’re the right one for the job. But ultimately they find out they’ve been actually chosen for their incompetence.

I’ve known several spies who have wanted to become novelists. And novelists who became spies, of course.

I was with the CIA for only three years. I worked in the Directorate of Operations, which is now called the National Clandestine Service. It’s the part of the organization where the spies live. I didn’t have much experience beyond the training.

We knew we were talking about spies. I knew he knew I knew. I was digging my own grave.

I know people like to read about serial killers and spies, but most of us will never encounter these things. Sadly, most of the threats we encounter are at home.

I have no spy stories to tell, because I saw no spies. Nor did I understand, at that time, any opposition between American and Russian national interest.

In film or on stage, in reflecting life through art, an actor has a second take or another day with his or her performance if something goes wrong. Bullfighters are spies crossing into enemy lines. Any mistake, no matter how minor or trivial, is potentially fatal.

While most of us have long understood that privacy is a fading commodity, something in human nature still expects that a phone call or email is a closed communication, and we tend to behave as though it is. That behaviour is what the electronic spies count upon, and want to preserve.

I guess I was just a young, fun-loving kid! Me and my older brother was always quoting ‘Coming to America,’ ‘Spies Like Us,’ ’48 Hours,’ and all those movies, just having fun amongst ourselves.

I’ve consciously tried not to romanticize anything, especially not intelligence work. I’ve always said that I’ve been writing a series of episodic, naturalistic novels. The people just happen to be spies, politicians, civil servants.

The consequences of leaking sensitive information is that Americans and coalition forces die, and we lose trust with foreign spies, and our national security is put at risk.

The fact of the matter is that the United States faces real threats from criminals, terrorists, spies, and malicious cyber actors.