Quotes from Len Deighton

Rich young troublemakers. The western world is full of such people.

But after a little while I got used to the tedium, understanding that these parts of my work were as essential to the arabesques of the final pattern as the rest bars are to a symphony.

she still had that fundamental insecurity that one bout of poverty can inflict for a lifetime, and no amount of money remedy.

But an Oxbridge education can make graduates feel that they are members of some privileged élite, destined to lead and make decisions that will be inflicted upon lesser beings. Such élitism must of necessity be based upon expectations that are often unfulfilled. Thus Oxbridge has not only provided Britain with its most notable politicians and civil servants but its most embittered traitors too.

I shouldn't have hit him at all but it was only a little jab in the belly and it helped him to sober up still more.

There's nothing a man can do if you buy something you want and say "Happy birthday" when he first sees it.

I put the gun and the scarf into the brown paper bag again. And I locked it into the desk where I kept unpaid bills, Fiona's jewellery and letters from the bank about my overdraft.

What do the British care about Churchill's reputation; they have history books full of such men. Democracy is the fabric from which their society is woven.

Yes, of course. A matter of principle, was it? I've always said that matters of principle are the very last things that should provoke a man to seeking recourse in the law courts. The same might well be said of the recourse to violence.

But I saw no sign of Fiona shedding the chrysalis of Communism.

Like all such London dinner parties it ended rather early and we were home and undressing for bed before midnight. We didn't read.

Companies are run by computers. Profit margins are sliced thin. And no manager dare raise his eyes from his accounts long enough to learn the names of his staff. It's the price we pay for progress.

So it wasn't tourists or encyclopaedia salesmen he was worried about.

She was only a child and I suppose such corny little manifestations of endearment were what she thought appropriate to her role as a femme fatale.

It was tempting to give it just a trace of water but he resisted the temptation – better that it was forced to adjust to its new environment. Too much care and attention could ruin it – it was a characteristic that cacti shared with agents in the field.

Peter was like that: he had the capacity for cruelty that comes so easily to the self-righteous.

They say the mustard manufacturers get rich from the dabs of mustard people leave on their plates. And we'll get rich in the same way, darling. From selling the soldiers weapons they'll never use.

Doesn't he know that all the world's governments tell lies all day every day, and show no sign of contrition even when they are caught out in such untruths?

Do you ever make silly mistakes? It is one of my very few creative activities.

Perhaps all fear is worse than reality, just as all hope is better than fulfilment.

What Douglas had once seen as the attractive over-confidence of youth, now looked more like unyielding selfishness.

When they ask me to become president of the United States I'm going to say, "Except for Washington D.C.

Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Yes? Well socialism is exactly the reverse.

He had a long thin nose, a moustache like flock wallpaper, sparse, carefully combed hair, and the complexion of a Hovis loaf.