William Stephenson Quotes

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.

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.

My name is E. Howard Hunt. I'm currently retired from more than 22 years in the profession of espionage.

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

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.

I saw a limit to what I was giving as kind of a scam I was running on the KGB, by giving them people that I knew were their double agents fed to us.

The creation of George Smiley, the retired spy recalled to hunt for just such a high-ranking mole in 'Tinker, Tailor,' was extremely personal. I borrowed elements of people I admired and invested them in this mythical character. I'm such a fluent, specious person now, but I was an extremely awkward fellow in those days.

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

Spying has always gone on since ancient times.

Espionage takes place in the world. Even we commit espionage.

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.

Espionage is largely separate from the mainstream of foreign policy … you nail the spy and you punish him, and you move on.

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.

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

I excelled in finding and acquiring secret information that I obtained in brush passes, dead drops, or in meetings in dusty alleys of third world capitals.

No one demands more caution than a spy, and when someone has the skeleton key to minds, counter him by leaving the key of caution inside, on the other side of the keyhole.

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.

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

Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity; They cannot be properly managed without benevolence and straightforwardness; Without subtle ingenuity of mind, one cannot make certain of the truth of their reports; Be subtle! be subtle! and use your spies for every kind of warfare; If a secret piece of news is divulged by a spy before the time is ripe, he must be put to death together with the man to whom the secret was told.

The enemy's spies who have come to spy on us must be sought out, tempted with bribes, led away and comfortably housed. Thus they will become double agents and available for our service. It is through the information brought by the double agent that we are able to acquire and employ local and inward spies. It is owing to his information, again, that we can cause the doomed spy to carry false tidings to the enemy.

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

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

Once you've lived the inside-out world of espionage, you never shed it. It's a mentality, a double standard of existence.

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