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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...more

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I don't break down," she announced. "Got it?"He got it. He was already pulling back, looking ashamed of himself, but somehow he was still holding her ...more

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Do you know what love is? I'll tell you: it is whatever you can still betray.

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There's no way out," he announced with satisfaction, "and no amount of wishful dreaming will produce one. The demon won't go back in its bottle, the f...more

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Some men will never be heroes, some heroes will never be men, he thought, with urgent acknowledgements to Joseph Conrad.

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A man who lives a part, not to others but alone, is exposed to obvious psychological dangers. In itself the practice of deception is not particularly ...more

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This is a war," Lemas replied. "It's graphic and unpleasant because it's fought on a tiny scale, at close range; fought with a wastage of innocent lif...more

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We have to live without sympathy, don't we? That's impossible of course. We act it to one another, all this hardness; but we aren't like that really, ...more

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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 ...more