What else has a journalist to do these days, after all, but report life's miseries? - John le Carré

We were both hybrids: I by birth, he by education. We had both taken too many steps away from the country that had borne us to belong anywhere with ease.

He hated the Press as he hated advertising and television, he hated mass-media, the relentless persuasion of the twentieth century. Everything he admired or loved had been the product of intense individualism.

I honestly do wonder, without wishing to be morbid, how I reached this present pass. So far as I can ever remember of my youth, I chose the secret road because it seemed to lead straightest and furthest toward my... goal... Today, all I know is that I have learned to interpret the whole of life in terms of conspiracy... These people terrify me, but I am one of them. If they stab me in the back, then at least that is the judgement of my peers.