Boadicea

“She hardly cared. They wanted her. They knew her through and through; they knew her fragility and her plurality. And they still wanted her. They had stolen her in order to rescue her. After all her drifting, their straight line. After all her guilt and concealment, their acceptance. After all her words, their action, their abstemiousness, their clear-eyed zeal, their authenticity, their true allegiance, to fill the emptiness that had yawned and screamed inside her like a bored demon ever since she could remember.”
― John le Carré, The Little Drummer Girl

“and marvelled at the self-regarding irrelevance of the ruling English mind.”
― John le Carré, The Little Drummer Girl

“And all right, it’s Merrie bloody England, it’s Laura bloody Ashley, it’s ale and pasties and yo-ho for Cornwall, and tomorrow morning all these nice, sweet people will be back at each other’s throats, screwing each other’s wives and doing all the stuff the rest of the world does. But right now it’s their National Day, and who’s an ex-diplomat of all people to complain if the wrapping is prettier than what’s inside?”
― John le Carré, A Delicate Truth

“The defended softness, that’s what I look for in the gals.”
― John le Carré, The Little Drummer Girl