David Byrne Quotes

I wanted to be a journalist. The other thing I wanted to be was a spy.

Most of us at least briefly considered answering, 'An astronaut,' when asked as children what we wanted to be when we grew up.

He was a secret agent, and still alive thanks to his exact attention to the detail of his profession.

When I was younger, I actually wanted to be a CIA agent. Really. I even did the online questionnaire.

However I dress it up, I was a spy and I am not proud of it.

I've always dreamt of having some sort of undercover job. I think it's probably the coolest thing in the world, but ultimately a very lonely life.

I'd be a terrible secret agent. I can't keep a secret and I'm not sneaky.

To become an astronaut, someone has to have a dream of his own to do something that he or she has always wanted to do, then commit himself to making that dream come true.

I always liked spy stories.

I don't know any astronauts. There are a lot of people who say they want to be comedians.

The world of spying is my genre. My struggle is to demystify, to de-romanticise the spook world, but at the same time harness it as a good story.

The more real I got on 'The Bourne Identity,' the more interesting it got. So 'Fair Game' was the chance to go a few more steps in that direction. In fact, I discovered this whole other world that I had ignored in the 'Bourne' franchise, which is the domestic life of a spy, and how you make the two halves of your life coexist.

I wasn't a spy. I'd have been spotted in five seconds. Yes, I was in intelligence, but that covered a multitude of things.

It so happened that my goals kind of matched my career progression toward becoming an astronaut.

Then, much later, my next dream was to become an astronaut, and I was fortunate to realize that dream, also.

I've always wanted to be a spy, and frankly I'm a little surprised that British intelligence has never approached me.

You can say that I lived in Asia for a long time and in Japan I became close to several CIA agents. And you could say that I became an adviser to several CIA agents in the field and, through my friends in the CIA, met many powerful people and did special works and special favors.

It is my writing dilemma. The world of spying is my genre. My struggle is to demystify, to de-romanticise the spook world, but at the same time harness it as a good story.

There are few archbishops in espionage. He's on our side and that's all that matters. Besides, one needn't ask him to one's club.

I was thinking as a little girl growing up that I would be there. When I look at whether we can go to Mars, it's definitely something we can do.

Oh, I can keep many secrets, so I would be a phenomenal secret agent. I love secrets.

I spent a whole career infiltrating places.

I spent close to a decade as an undercover officer in the CIA and have spent most of my adult life collecting intelligence and protecting sources and methods.

Obviously, anyone who has seen Mr. and Mrs. Smith knows that husband and wife married spies is something that I find particularly interesting.

Of all those in the army close to the commander, none is more intimate than the secret agent.