John le Carré

"Wives?' she asked, interrupting him. For a moment, he had assumed she was tuning to the novel. Then he saw her waiting, suspicious eyes, so he replied cautiously, 'None active,' as if wives were volcanoes."

"A lot of people see doubt as legitimate philosophical posture. They think of themselves in the middle, whereas of course really, they're nowhere."

"The vertical manThough we value noneBut the horizontal one."