Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

You couldn't trust anyone or anything that belonged to the world of espionage.

Be subtle! be subtle! and use your spies for every kind of business.

That’s the thing about spies. Most of the secrets we keep are from each other.

A person who searched rooms, brandished pistols, dangled promises of half a million franc fees for nameless services and then wrote instructions to Polish spies might reasonably be regarded with suspicion. But suspicion of what?

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

Since that time I have had continuous contact with the persons who were completely unknown to me, except that I knew they would hand whatever information I gave them to the Russian authorities.

It was given for all purposes to which a secret service fund should or could be applied to the public benefit—for spies, if the gentleman pleases.

“Covert Activity” in the United States is defined by law…. “Covert” and “Clandestine” don’t mean the same thing. That which is clandestine is secret but attributable. That which is covert is secret but not attributable. We define this kind of activity in legislation. I love this country

I would be a terrible CIA officer in real life.

For an old spy and codebreaker like myself, nothing in the world happens by coincidence.

Former CIA employee Joseph Weisberg's 'An Ordinary Spy' may attract attention for how much it redacts - whether by authorial choice or by CIA design - but its power comes from the growing frustration Weisberg's fictional alter ego feels at a system designed to betray seeming innocents in the most casual and cruel manner possible.

There is no place where espionage is not possible.

How could your cover be blown in Canada? Why even bother going dark there? How could you tell?

I'm not a spy for Russia or China or any other country for that matter.

The necessity of procuring good Intelligence is apparent & need not be further urged-All that remains for me to add, is, that you keep the whole matter as secret as possible. For upon Secrecy, Success depends in most Enterprizes of the kind, and for want of it, they are generally defeated, however well planned & promising a favourable issue.

Signs cannot be represented, in a spy's report, so damningly as words.

I cannot think that espionage can be recommended as a technique for building an impressive civilization. It's a lout's game.

The one thing you can bet is that spying is never over. Spying is like the wiring in this building: It's just a question of who takes it over and switches on the lights. It will go on and on and on.

Magic is used in espionage, all the time, for clandestine things. I've got a whole library from a gentleman who was hired by the CIA to create magic technology for the use of anti-terrorism.

There are some who become spies for money, or out of vanity and megalomania, or out of ambition, or out of a desire for thrills. But the malady of our time is of those who become spies out of idealism.

How crazy craziness makes everyone, how irrationally afraid. The madness hidden in each of us, called to, identified, aroused like a lust. And against that the jaw sets. The more I fear my own insanity the more I must punish yours.

I got nothing. Even the spies I'm spying on who are spying on other spies got nothing.

It is a little-known fact about covert operations that you will spend a lot of time with people you can’t really trust. They may be traitors and liars. We call them assets or informants. But mostly, in those days, I called him Zach.

Spies are the ears and eyes of Princes.

I'm a spy. It's not really... I worked for the CIA 15 years. The cover was I worked for the insurance business.