I've loved thrillers and spy stories since I was a kid. It's probably not a bad rule of thumb to write the kinds of stories you love to read.
Ian Fleming was my cousin, you know. He was in naval intelligence.
I love the combination of the words 'spies' and 'Balkans.' It's like meat and potatoes.
A stunner…reminds me of Tom Clancy at his finest.
I'd been a thriller reader all my life.
I am indeed a fan of John le Carre's novels.
You could say that all novels are spy novels and all novelists are spy masters.
And he said that he wrote the Bond character based on the character of David Niven. That's how he saw Bond.
Spy novels are traditionally about lone wolves, but how many people actually live like that?
Le Carre's voice - patrician, cold, brilliant and amused - was perfect for the wilderness-of-mirrors undertow of the Cold War, and George Smiley is the all-time harassed bureaucrat of spy fiction.
Graham Greene's work must be included in any survey of top-rank spy novels, and 'Our Man in Havana' may be his best.
One of my favorite authors to read is Eric Ambler, who helped pioneer the form of realistic suspense novels.
I love watching the Bond movies obviously and I grew up reading the books as a kid. I've always loved them because of that.
The first Bond movie I saw at cinemas was 'For Your Eyes Only' when I was almost 10. I got into the Fleming books after watching 'A View To A Kill' a few years later.
I only met Ian Fleming once, at a party given by my father's friend the director Carol Reed, at his house at 211 King's Road, Chelsea, the garden of which he shared with Peter Ustinov.
I think John le Carre is, at 77, the greatest living writer alive. He is a master craftsman.
I've always loved spy stories. Who can resist?
When I think of a story, somehow it just always seems to come out involving spooks and spies and government skullduggery.
I love Le Carre's writing.
I'm pretty omnivorous - in fact, I don't think of books in terms of genres. J. K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter' books are no more Y.A. reading, to me, than John le Carre's 'Smiley' novels are spy stories.
I love 'Bond' movies, I love spy movies.
I've consciously tried not to romanticize anything, especially not intelligence work. I've always said that I've been writing a series of episodic, naturalistic novels. The people just happen to be spies, politicians, civil servants.
Young people looking for adventure fiction now generally turn to fantasy, but for those of a certain age, the spy thriller has long been the escape reading of choice.
Of John Le Carre's books, I've only read 'The Spy Who Came In From The Cold,' and I haven't read anything by Graham Greene, but I've heard a great deal about how 'Your Republic Is Calling You' reminded English readers of those two writers. I don't really have any particular interest in Cold War spy novels.
I grew up on the Bond movies. The first one I saw was 'Diamonds Are Forever,' when I was a kid. I just loved them to pieces.
