Spy Novel Quotes

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was the work of a wayward imagination brought to the end of its tether by political disgust and personal confusion. Fifty years on, I don't associate the book with anything that ever happened to me, save for one wordless encounter at London airport when a worn-out, middle-aged military kind of man in a stained raincoat slammed a handful of mixed foreign change on to the bar and in gritty Irish accents ordered himself as much Scotch as it would buy. In that moment, Alec Leamas was born. Or so my memory, not always a reliable informant, tells me.

We have learned in recent years to translate almost all of political life in terms of conspiracy. And the spy novel, as never before, really, has come into its own.

I basically wrote five books with 'Night Soldiers,' called them novellas, and came in with a 600-page manuscript.

Like any good spy novel, the Cox Report alleges that Chinese spies penetrated four U.S. weapons research labs and stole important information on seven nuclear warhead designs.

I've always had a great affection for espionage stories. I like weaving them, and I like thrillers.

I think I honestly invented my own genre, the historical spy novel.

I did a book event with a former colleague, Bob Bauer, and was so relieved that he said I got all the CIA stuff right.

I love thrillers, and I always have.

'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' was the work of a wayward imagination brought to the end of its tether by political disgust and personal confusion.

I think I was 13 years old when my father put in my hands 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.' It was the first real adult book I ever read, and it opened a new world.

Charles McCarry is the best modern writer on the subject of intrigue - by the breadth of Alan Furst, by the fathom of Eric Ambler, by any measure.

For a spy novelist like me, the Edward J. Snowden story has everything. A man driven by ego and idealism - can anyone ever distinguish the two? - leaves his job and his beautiful girlfriend behind. He must tell the world the Panopticon has arrived. His masters vow to punish him, and he heads for Moscow in a desperate search for refuge.

I like to take certain aspects of genre fiction and modify them in my own way. 'Your Republic Is Calling You' follows the form of a spy novel, but it leads readers into a world of Kafkaesque irrationality.

'The Levanter' features some of the strongest action scenes to be found in Ambler - who can, in some of his fiction, stay in one place for a whole novel.

I think in some ways what Snowden is, is he's a mix of a cold war spy novel and post-9/11 spy novel.

People on 'The Incredibles' would ask me if I listened to a lot of spy scores, but no, I don't.

I have a whole section of a filing cabinet in my office full of ideas. Some are ideas for books or articles I want to write. One is a romantic comedy; one's about my dad's life. I've also got ideas for books on moral relativism as well as democracy and human nature. There's also a really cool concept for a spy novel.

I invented the historical spy novel.

I wrote three mysteries and then a contemporary spy novel that was unbelievably derivative - completely based on 'The Conversation,' the movie with Gene Hackman. Amazingly, the character in the book looks exactly like... Gene Hackman.

I began writing fiction because it was the only way to tell all the intricacies of a real-life spy story.

I remember I went to audition for the first Daniel Craig Bond film, 'Casino Royale.' I was there in this Versace dress, and I remember looking in the mirror, and I couldn't have felt less like a Bond girl if I tried.

I was in a peacetime army. It was like something out of a Le Carre novel: studying the habits of your enemy. It was very exciting. It's interesting living life as a civilian, then on Friday night you're parachuting into a foreign country.

'A Spy in the House', the first of Y. S. Lee's 'The Agency' novels, is pure confection, an historical romp through England at the height of The Great Stink that imagines a secret spy ring for women tucked away where few notice but powerful factions clamor for their services.