Top 100 Quotes About Espionage
#1. Once you've lived the inside-out world of espionage, you never shed it. It's a mentality, a double standard of existence.
John Le Carre
#2. The Iraqi regime was supporting terrorist cells all over the world. We had to expel three Iraqi diplomats from the Philippines because of evidence that they were either in touch with Abu Sayyaf or doing their own espionage.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
#3. The common theme here was contempt: a poisonous disregard for human life. For Vladimir Putin's critics have an uncanny habit of turning up dead.
Luke Harding
#4. He tried to recall the look of her eyes the day they first met. He closed his eyes and concentrated, but as he envisioned Kalila's car passing by, he couldn't decide if it was a memory or a dream.
Christian F. Burton
#5. If this emperor thing doesn't work out, you might have a future career in espionage.
Marissa Meyer
#6. If there's no sea-gull there's no meeting, Wicklow had said. No sea-gull means abort. That's my epitaph, thought Barley. 'There was no sea-gull, so he aborted.
John Le Carre
#7. When you really study espionage movies, or spy movies, the beginnings are really set up to have, like, an amazing bit of action, but at the moment you're watching it, you have no idea why or what it's about.
John Lasseter
#8. Can we move on now?" she continued, trying to keep her voice steady, and adjusting her dress in the effort.
He sat up and pulled his pants back on.
"Or is wild incredible sex with me part of your master espionage plan or something?
Angela Claire
#9. In the case of Pakistan, the CIA actually used a fake vaccination campaign to try to locate Osama bin Laden, so now vaccination is associated with espionage.
Eula Biss
#10. Do you know what love is? I'll tell you: it is whatever you can still betray.
John Le Carre
#11. You do not win a war by dying for your country. You win a war by making sure that some poor bastard dies for his.
Mal Peet
#12. Some men will never be heroes, some heroes will never be men, he thought, with urgent acknowledgements to Joseph Conrad.
John Le Carre
#13. Mysteries include so many things: the noir novel, espionage novel, private eye novels, thrillers, police procedurals. But the pure detective story is where there's a detective and a criminal who's committed a murder and leaves clues for the detective and the careful reader to find.
Otto Penzler
#14. But I made him the Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security because that added an element of political espionage.
Wes Craven
#15. The denials, if they need be given, could better be given with sincerity, and they could only be feigned if you didn't know them at all.
Kenneth Eade
#16. The angel of death can hardly have friends. And the prom, what about Danny? He can hardly have a Valkyrie for his date.
Jacques Antoine
#17. Sometimes one man must fight for what he feels is right, even against the majority. Something that is wrong does not change to right just because the majority approves it, ignores it, or the government says it is right. It is still wrong.
Kenneth Eade
#19. You were not merely a person unjustly accused of espionage, but someone who dared to challenge certain customs. And for that you could not be forgiven. However,
Paulo Coelho
#20. The nations, of course, that are most at risk of a destructive digital attack are the ones with the greatest connectivity. Marcus Ranum, one of the early innovators of the computer firewall, called Stuxnet 'a stone thrown by people who live in a glass house'.
Kim Zetter
#21. On a basic level, he had seen first-hand how his government used the element of fear to accomplish its objectives; the same element of fear that had been used as an excuse to engage its huge war machine in conflicts for the profits of America's oligarchy.
Kenneth Eade
#22. Out of every 10 scripts I get sent, seven are fairly generic about an American guy who gets the girl and is involved in underground espionage activity.
Jim Sturgess
#23. I'd love to do a sci-fi movie, a western, or an espionage thriller. But I'm not going to limit myself. If a good script comes along, I'm not going to discount it because it doesn't fit into one of these genres.
Park Chan-wook
#24. No one said learning etiquette and espionage would be easy, my dear.
Gail Carriger
#25. We already have the cops, the FBI and the CIA looking for us, not to mention the enemy. The last thing we need is for MI6 to get in on the hunt, too. -Cade Knight
Brian Bern
#26. All warfare is based on deception. There is no place where espionage is not used. Offer the enemy bait to lure him.
Sun Tzu
#27. they knew also that the Communist underground was directed from Moscow and served chiefly as an espionage source for the Russians.*
William L. Shirer
#29. You know how much I love you and the girls with all my heart, but being with Ruairi... I never realized there was something missing until I found it.
Victoria Roberts
#30. The executions of agents, partisans, saboteurs, suspicious people, indulging in espionage and sabotage, and those who were of a detrimental effect to the German Army, were, in my opinion, completely in accordance with the Hague Convention.
Paul Blobel
#31. There's Nazis and espionage. Everything can be explained by Nazis and espionage.
Paul Anderson
#32. I grew up reading the classic novels of Cold War espionage, and I studied Russian history and Soviet foreign policy.
Daniel Silva
#33. Semtex, PE4, C-4, Plastrite, Netrolit, Spring Korper, Rowanex
Cono felt slightly shameful about his familiarity with plastics, and yet seeing them here, even so amateurishly arranged, gave him a perverse comfort.
Victor Robert Lee
#34. There was reason for STILLMAN'S EXTREME SECRECY. HE WAS PREPARING TO EXTEND THE CITY BANK'S POWER OVER THE EARTH AND FULLY RECOGNIZED THAT THIS AMBITION WOULD DRAW HIM INTO THE WEB OF INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL INTRIGUE AND ESPIONAGE
George B. Cortelyou
#35. Being shaken to death by a Hawaiian tourist look-alike was not how Arena imagined her death.
Lynn Blackmar
#36. Look realistically at espionage thrillers again. They're not only alive, readers are excited about them.
Gayle Lynds
#37. We have some material on spying by a major government on the tech industry. Industrial espionage.
Julian Assange
#39. You know a lot about spies, espionage, and strategic advantages for a billionaire playboy, real estate mogul, and owner of an exclusive sex club.
Lisa Shearin
#40. I've always had a great affection for espionage stories. I like weaving them, and I like thrillers.
Terry Hayes
#41. At the time, King Herbert felt that to remain safe, the kingdom needed an effective intelligence force."
"An intelligent force?" said Will.
"Not intelligent. Intelligence. Although it does help if your intelligence force was also intelligent.
John Flanagan
#42. It came as naturally to him as breathing or lying, or worse. His mama had only taught her son to be cautious at all times. Garnette was more than that. Much, much more than that.
V.S. Carnes
#43. Espionage, for the most part, involves finding a person who knows something or has something that you can induce them secretly to give to you. That almost always involves a betrayal of trust.
Aldrich Ames
#44. There were moments when Szara suspected that many idealists drawn to Communism were, at heart, people with an appetite for clandestine life.
Alan Furst
#45. I found that our Soviet espionage efforts had virtually never, or had very seldom, produced any worthwhile political or economic intelligence on the Soviet Union.
Aldrich Ames
#46. If you knew when your last day of life was going to be, it was the best place to spend your last night on earth, because in Russia people party like tomorrow will never come.
Kenneth Eade
#47. Rockefeller and his associates did not build the Standard Oil Co. in the board rooms of Wall Street banks. They fought their way to control by rebate and drawback, bribe and blackmail, espionage and price cutting, by ruthless efficiency of organization.
Ida Tarbell
#48. Out in the field, any connection with home just makes you weaker. It reminds you that you were once civilized, soft; and that can get you killed faster than a bullet through the head.
Henry Mosquera
#49. In terms of the espionage, this is something I have talked to President Obama about. We don't want it to mar the relationship between Mexico and the United States. But it is unacceptable for a country to practice such espionage, especially if there is a good relationship with the other country.
Enrique Pena Nieto
#50. Havens reached into his ear and pinched enough of the latex with his fingernails to withdraw the device. He dropped it on the ground and crushed it under his foot. He didn't care if it was found. It was French-made. Procured for that very purpose.
F*** overwatch. Screw the French.
J.T. Patten
#51. Nobody seems to remember you from any of your employers."
"I guess I'm not very memorable
Kenneth Eade
#52. It's who I am. I can't just pretend to be some normal kid. That won't work either. They'll never leave me alone. But here's what I know: a block is a strike, and the more an adversary thinks he has succeeded, the more devastating the strike will be.
Jacques Antoine
#53. I'm sort of fascinated by the whole espionage crime thing.
Aaron Eckhart
#55. It's interesting in this day and age to do a film about political espionage and wiretapping. I don't think that those types of secrets that J. Edgar Hoover was able to obtain and keep for such a long period of time would be possible in today's world, with the Internet and WikiLeaks.
Leonardo DiCaprio
#56. When you grow suspicious of a person and begin a system of espionage upon him, your punishment will be that you will find your suspicions true.
Elbert Hubbard
#57. In many cases, Obama's exercise of authoritarian power is criminal. His executive branch is responsible for violations of the Arms Export Control Act in shipping weapons to Syria, the Espionage Act in Libya, and IRS law with regard to the targeting of conservative groups.
Ben Shapiro
#58. Because you've managed to hide the existence of a significant other from the blogs. I don't care if you're involved with a man, a woman, or a sapient pear tree. You ought to go into international espionage. I never even heard a rumor.
Mira Grant
#59. The habits and language of clandestinity can intoxicate even its own practitioners.
William Colby
#60. First the FSB agent, and now the FBI. It was becoming a real alphabet soup of international espionage.
Kenneth Eade
#62. Mainly, when I go see a show, unfortunately it's more industrial espionage than it is going to actually enjoy a show.
Hal Sparks
#63. I have a theory which I suspect is rather immoral,' Smiley went on, more lightly. 'Each of us has only a quantum of compassion. That if we lavish our concern on every stray cat, we never get to the centre of things.
John Le Carre
#64. It was their vampire teacher's custom of late to administer decidedly oddball lessons. Which is to say, more oddball than an ordinary lesson with a vampire in a floating dirigible espionage school.
Gail Carriger
#65. After a moment's consideration, she switched to the spot next to Pillover and attempted to read over his shoulder, ignoring his faint goaty smell. All boys smell of goat.
Gail Carriger
#66. Spy' is such a short ugly word. I prefer 'espionage.' Those extra three syllables really say something.
Howard Tayler
#67. Cono felt embarrassed by the thought that he might have been just another pitiful orphan trying to turn his friends into family, and that he might be blinded by this need, a need that colored his whole life, that ache to offer worth to someone.
Victor Robert Lee
#68. Grandpa said that we could solve a lot of the world's problems if we considered cats and dogs edible. Like the neighbor's dog who goes to the bathroom in his flower garden. And know what else?
Cole Alpaugh
#69. It is ironic that Mr. Berger learned of this espionage in exactly the same month that Mr. Gore was attending his now famous fund-raiser with Buddhist nuns in Southern California.
Lamar Alexander
#70. They would know that inconsistency in human decision can make nonsense of the best-planned espionage approach; that cheats, liars and criminals may resist every blandishment while respectable gentlemen have been moved to appalling treasons by watery cabbage in a Departmental canteen.
John Le Carre
#71. A lady must always be prepared. Snacks are an essential part of espionage. Sophronia
Gail Carriger
#72. It is essential to seek out enemy agents who have come to conduct espionage against you and to bribe them to serve you. Give them instructions and care for them. Thus doubled agents are recruited and used.
Sun Tzu
#73. Nobody understood why opposites attracted, and anybody who said they did was probably selling a book.
Lynn Blackmar
#74. In the intelligence community, a rumor was almost as good as a confirmation.
Kenneth Eade
#76. ...and I was reminded....of the everday boredom of a life in espionage. One is always waiting for someone who does not show up,for something that does not happen.
Charles McCarry
#77. The difficulties of conducting espionage against the Soviet Union in the Soviet Union were such that historically the Agency had backed away from the task.
Aldrich Ames
#78. My name is E. Howard Hunt. I'm currently retired from more than 22 years in the profession of espionage.
E. Howard Hunt
#79. Gentlemen. You are looking at the true Abraham Lincoln of Arabia. And in order to end our internal bickering - our civil war, if you will - I have solicited your aid.
Leonard Leventon
#80. He was learning to live on several planes at once. The art of it was to forget everything except the ground you stood on and the face you spoke from at that moment.
John Le Carre
#81. You could be the perfect spy. All you need is a cause.
John Le Carre
#82. Society tends to stick labels on everything and everyone. The label that is given to you will stick with you for a lifetime.
Kenneth Eade
#83. Understand this... Elizabeth is a Walsingham, and we Walsinghams chase no man."
"Aye, well, I'll be sure to tell that to Torquil the next time I see him.
Victoria Roberts
#84. What?" He cut a grin at Kat when he saw the impressed look on her face. "Corporate espionage is my second greatest passion.'
"With your first being ... " Kat prompted.
"Gelato," Hale said, and turned back to the group.
Ally Carter
#85. I've got to think of a hundred and sixty million Americans, not of the three or four that happen to be the ones I love. And it wouldn't be a big thing - security is built on lots of little thing. I don't like to talk about it. (Calhoun Hightower in Danger for Breakfast)
John McPartland
#86. Don't worry. Blood will not be shed. Although if there was, I'm sure your husband would have another fine tapestry made.
Victoria Roberts
#88. I think all artists struggle to represent the geometry
of life in their own way, just like writers deal with
archetypes. There are only so many stories that you can
tell, but an infinite number of storytellers.
Henry Mosquera
#89. It was nearly impossible to keep anything a secret, especially from her
sisters, the youngest of whom - Hyacinth - could probably have won the war against Napoleon in half
the time if His Majesty had only thought to draft her into the espionage service.
Julia Quinn
#90. Haydon had found his charm again. He could do that at the drop of a hat. He drew you and he repelled you. I remember that exactly. He danced all ways for you, playing your emotions against each other because he had none of his own.
John Le Carre
#91. Democrats and Republicans were essentially the same party with different faces and that was why, no matter how many promises each leader made, significant change rarely transpired.
James Morcan
#92. The Obsidian Order?" I asked.
"What do you know about us?"
"Nothing."
"That's a good start.
Andrew J. Robinson
#93. I am a huge fan of Alan Furst. Furst is the best in the business
the most talented espionage novelist of our generation.
Vince Flynn
#94. How different her life would be if Orrin hadn't contacted her in July. She wouldn't be embroiled in kidnapping, espionage, and murder.
Donna Grant
#95. I'm like the fucking Three Stooges of espionage. All three of 'em. All rolled into one!
Abigail Roux
#96. My father once told me that it's not enough for a man to be lucky; that a guy has to know when that streak is on for him.
Henry Mosquera
#97. Deception is a sort of seduction. In love and war, adultery and espionage, deceit can only succeed if the deceived party is willing, in some way, to be deceived.
Ben Macintyre
#98. My understanding is that espionage means giving secret or classified information to the enemy. Since Snowden shared information with the American people, his indictment for espionage could reveal (or confirm) that the US Government views you and me as the enemy.
Ron Paul
#99. There is no place where espionage is not possible.
Sun Tzu
#100. The only reason that there has been no sabotage or espionage on the part of Japanese-Americans is that they are waiting for the right moment to strike.
Earl Warren
