David Leitch Quotes

You could say that all novels are spy novels and all novelists are spy masters.

I would be a terrible CIA officer in real life.

I love the spy genre.

In my head, I think I'd make a perfect spy, but in reality, I don't think I'd fare very well.

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

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.

The CIA in real life, we know, is looking for new kinds of cover. It's looking for new platforms, as they like to say, and it's trying to use the revolution in communications technology, the ability to use all sorts of corporate entities in ways that are hard to detect to get our spies in the places where they need to be.

I spent a whole career infiltrating places.

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

The human spy, in terms of the American espionage effort, had never been terribly pertinent.

Female spies typically represented one of two extremes: the seductress who employed her wiles to manipulate men, and the cross-dresser who blended in by impersonating them.

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.

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

Spy plots are hard, really hard.

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.

There is only one law of espionage—there are always going to be spies.

Clandestine intelligence operations involve a constant breaking of all the rules.. To put it baldly, such operations are extra legal and sometimes illegal.

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

If you’re going to be involved with espionage, you’ve got to be motivated. It’s not fun and games. It’s dirty and dangerous. There’s always the chance that you’re going to get burned.

Spies are a most important element in water, because on them depends an army's ability to move.

Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity.

"We're going to be okay." Here's the thing about being a spy: sometimes all you have are your lies. They protect your cover and keep your secrets, and right then I needed to believe that it was true even when all the facts said otherwise.

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