Spy Quotations

They make Spy Kids, they make Scream, they make A Scary Movie. This doesn't do that, so it could be a very bad marriage. I'm trying to keep this potential nightmare quiet because we're just finishing editing.

The creation of George Smiley, the retired spy recalled to hunt for just such a high-ranking mole in 'Tinker, Tailor,' was extremely personal. I borrowed elements of people I admired and invested them in this mythical character. I'm such a fluent, specious person now, but I was an extremely awkward fellow in those days.

Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy, It is not safe to know.

Everybody calls everybody a spy, secretly, in Russia, and everybody is under surveillance. You never feel safe.

When people find out that I've written 208 novels, they ask, 'How did you think of all that?' Well, I answer, 'How do you not think of it?' I see a gum wrapper on the ground, and I think, 'Oh, a Russian spy probably dropped that.' I just think like that, and those thoughts go through my mind constantly.

I am literally the worst person at keeping secrets. I'd be the worst spy of all time.

I give my grandfather, Dr Harold Young, a forestry Professor at the University of Maine, full credit for my career path. He pioneered the use of aerial photography in forestry in the 1950s, and we think he worked as a spy for the CIA during the Cold War, mapping Russian installations.

My perception of making a movie before I started making movies was that it would be like Spy Kids.

War stories, westerns, spy stories are all accepted as respectable because they are read by men. It is only women's light reading which is derided.

Writing about magic is harder than writing about spies because you're dealing with something that doesn't really exist.

For a spy novelist like me, the Edward J. Snowden story has everything. A man driven by ego and idealism - can anyone ever distinguish the two? - leaves his job and his beautiful girlfriend behind. He must tell the world the Panopticon has arrived. His masters vow to punish him, and he heads for Moscow in a desperate search for refuge.

There's an awful lot of corruption in Japanese business and politics, corruption of the sort that can make for great setting for a spy story.

If you live with death threats, you need friends. So you have to risk that they might spy on you.

It's about these people who are inextricably together for whatever reasons, and they happen to be in the spy world. It's about relationships, and the bottom line is, that's why you care.

Protestantism has actually put a man in the position of a country governed by secret police. The spy and eavesdropper, 'conscience,' watches over every motion of the mind, and all thought and action is for it a 'matter of conscience,' i.e. police business.

I don't like to go to the movies to see violence or some kind of spy thing with all kinds of information you have to assimilate to understand the plot.

The spy boom has been a beautiful windfall for architects, construction companies, IT specialists, and above all defense contractors, enriching thousands of private companies and dozens of local economies hugging the Capital Beltway.

Like any good spy novel, the Cox Report alleges that Chinese spies penetrated four U.S. weapons research labs and stole important information on seven nuclear warhead designs.

I've always wanted to be a spy, and frankly I'm a little surprised that British intelligence has never approached me.

The Spy Act prohibits keystroke logging, hijacking, and phishing.

However I dress it up, I was a spy and I am not proud of it.

Female spies typically represented one of two extremes: the seductress who employed her wiles to manipulate men, and the cross-dresser who blended in by impersonating them.

We knew we were talking about spies. I knew he knew I knew. I was digging my own grave.

A spy, like a writer, lives outside the mainstream population. He steals his experience through bribes and reconstructs it.

Back in the 1950s, there was a top-secret program code-named SUNTAN being conducted at a top-secret facility called Skunk Works. Its objective? To develop a liquid-hydrogen-powered spy plane. Because liquid hydrogen is incredibly volatile, early experiments were conducted inside a bomb shelter with eight-foot-thick walls.

They were conspiring to desert us in the night and steal some of our horses... we engaged a spy.

Of John Le Carre's books, I've only read 'The Spy Who Came In From The Cold,' and I haven't read anything by Graham Greene, but I've heard a great deal about how 'Your Republic Is Calling You' reminded English readers of those two writers. I don't really have any particular interest in Cold War spy novels.

There will always be spies. We have to have them. Without them we wouldn't have got Osama bin Laden - it took us years, but it happened.

Having now reached a point where danger might be reasonably apprehended from strolling war parties of Indians, spies were kept in advance and strict diligence observed in the duty of sentinels.

We have learned in recent years to translate almost all of political life in terms of conspiracy. And the spy novel, as never before, really, has come into its own.

I wrote 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' at the age of 30 under intense, unshared personal stress and in extreme privacy. As an intelligence officer in the guise of a junior diplomat at the British Embassy in Bonn, I was a secret to my colleagues, and much of the time to myself.

The role of women has always been undervalued in the spy world, always undermined in terms of recognition. Unfairly so. It's a world that needs women.

The Spy Act strikes a right balance between preserving legitimate and benign uses of this technology, while still, at the same time, protecting unwitting consumers from the harm caused when it is misused and, of course, designed for nefarious purposes.

In America, you have the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. You've got drones now being considered for domestic surveillance. You have the National Security Agency building the world's giantest spy center.

In TV, and in particular in commercials, you don't really need to explain very much at all - you just say he's a spy and he's a little bit theatrical and overblown and smug and he's not very good at his job.

I'll tell you what I really enjoy. We all go to the movies, we all watch television, we know what they're about, how they work. When the main character is a cop or a spy, it's very exciting, but I also very much enjoy when the main characters are nobodies - a trucker.

I am a spy in the house of me. I report back from the front lines of the battle that is me. I am somewhat nonplused by the event that is my life.

I've been a spy for almost all of my adult life - I don't like being in the spotlight.

I wasn't a spy. I'd have been spotted in five seconds. Yes, I was in intelligence, but that covered a multitude of things.

I want to play a fireman and a spy. I want to learn special effects.

The Confederates had suspected Wild Bill of being a spy for two or three days, and had watched him closely.

From infancy on, we are all spies; the shame is not this but that the secrets to be discovered are so paltry and few.

I am on Facebook, but mainly as a way to spy on my children. I find out more about them from their Facebook pages than from what they tell me.

Today's difference between Russia and the United States is that in Russia everybody takes everybody else for a spy, and in the United States everybody takes everybody else for a criminal.

The Patriot Act is ludicrous. Terrorists have proved that they are interested in total genocide, not subtle little hacks of the U.S. infrastructure, yet the government wants a blank search warrant to spy and snoop on everyone's communications.

My notion of the KGB came from romantic spy stories. I was a pure and utterly successful product of Soviet patriotic education.

Ghostery lets you spy on the spies in your computer. For each web page you visit, this extension uncloaks some - but not all - of the invisible tracking software that is working behind the scenes.

The spy genre is something which, as a fan of movies, a movie geek myself, I just love that cinematic joy that they bring.

I'm almost incapable of lying. I'd be a terrible spy.

I wrote three mysteries and then a contemporary spy novel that was unbelievably derivative - completely based on 'The Conversation,' the movie with Gene Hackman. Amazingly, the character in the book looks exactly like... Gene Hackman.

Le Carre's voice - patrician, cold, brilliant and amused - was perfect for the wilderness-of-mirrors undertow of the Cold War, and George Smiley is the all-time harassed bureaucrat of spy fiction.

I think in some ways what Snowden is, is he's a mix of a cold war spy novel and post-9/11 spy novel.

Liberals and leftists have been dismissing inconvenient facts by attacking motives for generations. In the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, Soviet spies and abettors attacked the motives of their accusers because the fact of their guilt was undeniable. In the 1960s, over a thousand psychiatrists who'd never even met Barry Goldwater signed a petition saying the GOP candidate was too mentally unstable to be president.

When I talk to college students about Spy, it's like I'm describing something that happened in the 19th century. We were very lucky. We started Spy at a time when our generation had arrived at full adulthood and wanted to connect to its anti-establishment youth.

With my mouth I speak slander, day and night. I spy on the houses of others - I am such a wretched low-life! Unfulfilled sexual desire and unresolved anger dwell in my body, like the outcasts who cremate the dead. I live as a wild hunter, O Creator!

I have no plans to write an autobiography, I will leave that to others. I'm sure they will turn me into a homosexual or a Nazi spy or something else.

I like lassic British spy thrillers. Seriously. If the cold war was still on, that's something I'd be writing.

I grew up on genre - on Westerns, spy thrillers, sci-fi, fantasy novels, horror novels. Especially horror novels.

It's critical how we want to use these spy programs, these electronic capabilities, where we want to draw the line, and who should approve these programs, these decisions, and at what level, for engaging in operations that could lead us as a nation into a war.

There are many reasons, of course, why someone might snap their fingers and grin. If you heard some pleasing music, for instance, you might snap your fingers and grin to demonstrate that the music had charms that could soothe your savage breast. If you were employed as a spy, you might snap your fingers and grin in order to deliver a message in secret snapping-and-grinning code.

I think I would make a good spy. I can sort of be a chameleon. People don't notice me very easily. I never get recognized.

I have no spy stories to tell, because I saw no spies. Nor did I understand, at that time, any opposition between American and Russian national interest.

Choosing providers is not a choice between surveillance/not; it's just choosing which feudal lord gets to spy on you.

I think it was the sense that Turn is a spy thriller, and that's a genre that really fascinates me, in general.

What is a Gallagher Girl? She's a genius, a scientist, a heroine, a spy... a Gallagher Girl is whatever she wants to be.

From the outside, the CIA seems pretty exotic, but from the inside, it's a big bureaucratic place. Think 'post office with spies.'

I'm not a spy for Russia or China or any other country for that matter.

I'm not a spy, which is the real question

The United States has faced threats from criminal groups, from terrorists, from spies throughout our history, and we have limited our responses. We haven't resorted to total war every time we have a conflict around the world, because that restraint is what defines us. That restraint is what gives us the moral standing to lead the world.

We are talking about the most prolific and damaging spy in U.S. history. Secrets sold, not only from the FBI where he worked, but also from the CIA, the White House, the Pentagon and the National Security Agency.

I invented the historical spy novel.

When you really study espionage movies, or spy movies, the beginnings are really set up to have, like, an amazing bit of action, but at the moment you're watching it, you have no idea why or what it's about.

to play the spy game better than anybody's ever played it before. He wants to be the best spy ever.

Since the (suicide), Japan also urged all our staffers in China to use caution against spy activities, and warned all embassies abroad.

Most people realize that this administration has done almost nothing to perpetuate the views that many of the people held when they voted for them on Cuba politics. I believe Cuba is about to become a focus again. This is all stuff to gear up for the electoral cycle. The spy case was an attempt to put up some points on the Republican side.

Obviously, 'Homeland' is not just a spy thriller. It's more than that, but 'Tyrant' will be a bit more of a palace drama. It'll be about the families, but there will be political intrigue as well.

Riders that spy the most Lincoln sites will be eligible for a prize drawing. Participants will win either way because they'll have the opportunity to ride where Abraham Lincoln once walked.

I grew up on all of the great spy movies and TV series of the Sixties - not just Bond, but Derek Flint and the Avengers and Modesty Blaise and the Man from UNCLE and on and on. Every time I sit down to work on Cinderella, I'm writing a love letter to all of those characters.

From the FBI to the Pentagon to the National Security Agency, this administration has embarked on an unprecedented campaign to spy on innocent Americans.

I don't want to be a Cassandra, but I fear the entire nonprofit sector in Russia is facing dark times. There is spy mania in Russia, and they are specially scrutinizing any organization that has foreign funding.

There are so many questions. People feel strongly he was a spy or he was not a spy.

knowing whether or not the accused spy is really going to cooperate.

I think that goes way ahead of the information that's before us. At the first instance what we need to do is get to the bottom of it, understand what legal authority, if any, this administration had to spy on Americans.

Requiring a judge to approve a wiretap is not a nicety that can be avoided by presidential decree -- it is a fundamental rule of American democracy. The government ignored the system authorized by Congress in favor of limitless power to spy on Americans.

Regardless of what happens with this agreement, Congress can, and must fix the Patriot Act to better protect the privacy and freedom of ordinary Americans. At the same time, until the Bush administration stops the illegal NSA program to spy on Americans and stops ignoring the rule of law, any reforms to the Patriot Act could be ignored under the extreme philosophy of power embraced by this president. No matter the result of the Patriot Act, we hope all senators involved in these negotiations will resist pressure from the administration. Congress must restore the rule of law and insist that innocent Americans' rights be protected against the overreaching of the White House. We can, and must, be both safe and free.

I was initially recruited while I was in business school back in the late sixties by the National Security Agency, the nation's largest and least understood spy organization; but ultimately I worked for private corporations.

I’m really starting to like all this spy work,” Vee said. “When my normal life gets boring, all I have to do is sidle up next to you.

The arrival of this spy center means that Big Brother is finally here. The balance between the state and individual privacy has swung too far in favor of the state.

Will you walk into my parlor?" said the Spider to the Fly; "'Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy

Whether it's one spy or hundreds, they contribute to the culture of doubt. From the early stages of the revolution, Castro has been separating families, creating divisions between friends. And it's happened in Miami, too. You don't always know who to trust.

We don't see too much of a spy look anymore, ... because of our run game and because of some of the things that we do. We see more straight-up coverage. ... They try to stop me that way and not be fancy with it.

Trojans are different from viruses because they can lurk in PCs without anyone noticing and can spy on the computer user's activities then send this information back anywhere in the world.

You know, it's like cowboys -- they love westerns. So people who are in intelligence work often like spy shows -- they get a kick out of it.

We found a large plane to our left, 50 kilometers ahead of us. When the U.S. spy plane spotted us, it adjusted its course ... and we readjusted ours to the same speed, same direction as the U.S. plane.

You don't really know who to defend. We're both fast, so you really don't know who to look out for. You can't spy both of us.

'XIII' is a spy show. I think the comic book is a little too similar to 'The Bourne Identity.' I tried to take it away from that. I believe there was, many years ago, before the Bourne movies, a lawsuit that made it so they couldn't be published in English.

Further, an excess of legislation defeats its own ends. It makes the whole population criminals, and turns them all into police and police spies. The moral health of such a people is ruined for ever; only revolution can save it.

The human spy, in terms of the American espionage effort, had never been terribly pertinent.

Waiting. Like it or not, it's a skill all spies have to master eventually.

Turns out, you can take the girl out of the spy school, but you can never take the spy school out of the girl.