Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (novel)

"“Youre a good watcher, anyway…No one else spotted me. Gave me a real turn up there, parked on the horizon. Thought you were a juju man. Best watcher in the unit, Bill Roach is, Ill bet. Long as hes got his specs on. What?” “Yes,” Roach agreed gratefully, “I am.”"

"Unlike Jim Prideaux, Mr. George Smiley was not naturally equipped for hurrying in the rain. Indeed, he might have been the final form for which Bill Roach was the prototype. Small, podgy and at best middle-aged, he was by appearance one of Londons meek who do not inherit the earth."

"“Im surprised they didnt throw you out with the rest of us,” Smiley said, not very pleasantly. “You had all the qualifications: good at your work, loyal, discreet.”"

"There was a short pause, illuminated by the vision of Ricki Tarr and his Moscow Centre mistress kneeling side by side in the rear pew of a Baptist church in Hong Kong."

"Smiley thought: Yes, with Ricki Tarr it could have happened. With Tarr, anything could have happened…In Brixton, they used to call him accident-prone."

"“We blew up the photographs and there they were: two gallantry and four campaign. Aleks Polyakov was a war veteran and hed never told a soul in seven years. Oh I was excited! ‘Toby,’ I said, ‘You just listen to me for a moment, you Hungarian poison dwarf. This is one of the occasions when ego has finally got the better of cover.’”"

"Witchcraft No. 4 was an immensely technical Soviet Foreign Service appreciation of the advantages and disadvantages of negotiating with a weakened American president. The conclusion, on balance, was that by throwing the President a bone for his own electorate, the Soviet Union could buy useful concessions."

"“Youre an educated sort of swine, Roy Bland announced… “’An artist is a bloke who can hold two fundamentally opposing views and still function’: who dreamed that one up?” “Scott Fitzgerald,” Smiley replied. “Well, Fitzgerald knew a thing or two,” Bland affirmed. “And Im definitely functioning, George. As a good socialist Im going for the money. As a good capitalist, Im sticking with the revolution, because if you cant beat it, spy on it.”"

"“Were losing our livelihood. Our self-respect. Weve had enough.” Alleline took back the report and jammed it under his arm. “And like everyone whos had enough,” said Control, as Alleline noisily left the room, “he wants more.”"

"Across from Porteous were Bills Russians, Nick de Silsky and his boyfriend Kaspar. They couldnt smile and for all Guillam knew they couldnt read either because they had no papers in front of them; they were the only ones who hadnt. They sat with their four thick hands on the table as if somebody was holding a gun behind them, and they just watched him with their four brown eyes."

"Now whole vistas of deceit opened before Guillam. His friends, his loves, even the Circus itself, joined and re-formed in endless patterns of intrigue. A line of Mendels came back to him, dropped two nights ago as they drank beer in some glum suburban pub: “Cheer up, Peter, old son. Jesus Christ only had twelve, you know, and one of them was a double.”"

"Jim Prideaux arrived on a Friday in a rainstorm. The rain rolled like gun-smoke down the brown combes of the Quantocks, then raced across the empty cricket fields into the sandstone of the crumbling facades …Of the whole school only little Bill Roach actually saw Jim arrive, saw the steam belching from the Alvis bonnet as it wheezed its way down the pitted drive…"