David Copperfield Quotes

I spent over ten years in the Central Intelligence Agency as an undercover operations officer serving overseas after 9/11 where I carried out covert operations against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, as well as other countries who are 'hostile to liberty,' as I like to say.

With stealth technology, the U.S. could spy on its Cold War adversaries without running the risk of getting caught.

From the outside, the CIA seems pretty exotic, but from the inside, it's a big, bureaucratic place. Think 'post office with spies.'

Covert action should not be confused with missionary work.

What the Hell do those clowns do out there at Langley? Get the CIA jerks working on Cambodia.

I learned serving under William J. Casey, that the Clandestine Service is the heart and soul of the agency [the CIA]. It is also the part that can land you in jail.

One of the things that distinguishes the CIA from the State Department is that the CIA is both asked to, and authorized to, steal secrets. So if the question is whether the CIA steals secrets, the answer is yes.

Breaking a cardinal rule of spy craft, I actually let it be known that I wanted to work for the CIA.

I joined the CIA in 1985 as an operations officer in the Clandestine Service.

It will be the CIA's mission and my own if confirmed to ensure that the agency remains the best in the world at its core mission - collecting what our enemies do not want us to know. In short, the CIA must be the world's premier espionage organization.

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

We need to make is to strengthen the position of the director of the CIA.

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.

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

Throughout my career, I had the great fortune to experience firsthand as well as to witness what it means to be a CIA officer.

Andrew Warren was a rarity in the CIA's Clandestine Service - African-American, fluent in Arabic, and relatively young for an agent who'd already spent nearly a decade chasing terrorists in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq and Algeria, so deep undercover that few of his friends or family knew the nature of his work.

A major theme in all my books is that the CIA is not only the first line of defense but they should also be the first line of offense.

This also turned out to be negative, so there is no material in the Central Intelligence Agency, either in the records or in the mind of any of the individuals, that there was any contact had or even contemplated with him.

I handed over names and compromised so many CIA agents in the Soviet Union.

As an old man who remembers the intellectual exhilaration and the pleasure of having done good work that characterized the CIA when it was young, I wonder if it might not be better to speak and think in terms of restoring its culture.

Who would have thought that in the 1950s, Burbank was a hotbed of international espionage?

There will always be spies. We have to have them. Without them we wouldn't have got Osama bin Laden - it took us years, but it happened.

Since real spies are so good, you never really know what actual spying is. But I do think spying is a lot more dangerous than we are led to believe.

I find a difference in British spy fiction and American spy fiction. In the American version, it's more militaristic, partly because the CIA has more of the military makeup. Whereas MI6 is more of a cerebral, intelligence-based, relationship-based service, i.e., all they do is recruit people to get information out of them.