John le Carre Quotes

I had a lot of experience with people smarter than I am.

We regard intelligence as man's main characteristic and we know that there is no superiority which intelligence cannot confer on us, no inferiority for which it cannot compensate.

If it were a fact, it wouldn't be called intelligence.

Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the fates.

I can well imagine that certain writers, even writers that we'd consider today very great writers, may not necessarily have tested highly on IQ just because of their numerical skills, or maybe they may not be very good at memory, and are not particularly good at these kinds of tests.

I never had a business plan. I did, actually - I'm lying. My business plan was to get lucky, and I did; that was great. And then my second business plan was to get lucky again, and there, I faltered.

I took a test once; they said I was a genius.

I'm not a Mensa member. I have no idea where that rumor came from. I never have been, and I doubt if I ever will be.

I've never had a clear road map. When things come along, I benefit.

The thing about acting is that it's fairly random. At the end of the day you take what drifts past you or what's given to you.

The No. 1 thing I am earnestly attracted to is intelligence.

Intelligence is only as good as it has an effect on policy

Luck is not scalable. Luck is not a national strategy.

I knew that the most important thing a man has is in his head, and from a young age, I often studied the head structure of each person, hoping to crack his codes. I considered a high forehead a gift from God.

I'm not as athletic as some guys, so I have to counter that with a tremendous brain that thinks the game.

I grew up with plenty of smart people. They would beat me at chess; they could solve brain teasers before I could, but then they would struggle in algebra. These were incredibly smart people who simply did not have the foundation in math that I had.

I've never had a dumb quarterback. I think if you're dumb, it's difficult to overcome.

An intelligence is the biological and psychological potential to analyze information in specific ways, in order to solve problems or to create products that are valued in a culture.

Intelligence is an extremely subtle concept. It's a kind of understanding that flourishes if it's combined with a good memory, but exists anyway even in the absence of good memory. It's the ability to draw consequences from causes, to make correct inferences, to foresee what might be the result, to work out logical problems, to be reasonable, rational, to have the ability to understand the solution from perhaps insufficient information. You know when a person is intelligent, but you can be easily fooled if you are not yourself intelligent.

We never know until the beast of opportunity is staring us in the face.

People will complain that they don't want to wait around for lightning to strike, but why not? If you invest yourself in chance, the potential for disappointment is pretty low.

Life was a swarm of accidents waiting in the treetops, descending upon any living thing that passed, ready to eat them alive. You swam in a river of chance and coincidence. You clung to the happiest accidents- the rest you let float by.

Here's the thing about luck...you don't know if it's good or bad until you have some perspective.

In the make-up of human beings, intelligence counts for more than our hands, and that is our true strength.

So much of life, so much of work, is luck.