Christopher Lee Quotes

One of my own guiding principles in intelligence work was ... not to make a mystery of what is a matter of common knowledge or obvious to friend and foe alike.

You can probably forgive the top spy for lying about spying. Lying is part of the job description. It’s what spies do.

I would be a terrible CIA officer in real life.

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

I really wanted to be a spy. I guess it's a bit like acting, where you play a role.

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.

The men and women of the CIA are a national treasure.

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.

I've had nothing to do with the intelligence world since I left it, in any shade or variety.

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

I think all governments engage in intelligence gathering vis-a-vis other governments.

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

The Secret Intelligence Service I knew occupied dusky suites of little rooms opposite St James's Park Tube station in London.

I always liked spy stories.

For some, the very act of intelligence gathering seems illegitimate when applied to the crime of terrorism.

For something that's supposed to be secret, there is a lot of intelligence history. Every time I read one book, two more are published.

I was initially recruited while I was in business school back in the late sixties by the National Security Agency, the nation's largest and least understood spy organization; but ultimately I worked for private corporations.

What I really found was that the one similarity between 'Covert Affairs' and 'Fair Game' is a deep love and admiration and fascination with the home life of a spy.

I've always wanted to play a spy, because it is the ultimate acting exercise. You are never what you seem.

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

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.

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.

Secrecy now beclouds everything about CIA—its cost, its efficiency, its successes, and its failures.

Secrecy is as essential to Intelligence as vestments to a Mass, or darkness to a spiritualist seance, and must at all costs be maintained, quite irrespective of whether or not it serves any purpose.

Intelligence without counter-intelligence is useless.