Spies Quotes

I know people like to read about serial killers and spies, but most of us will never encounter these things. Sadly, most of the threats we encounter are at home.

Spies go undercover. They take on different personas.

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.

Mr. Snowden did not start out as a spy, and calling him one bends the term past recognition. Spies don’t give their secrets to journalists for free.

Inside North Korea, we have many informants and spies watching everyone; they’re paid by the government. Even a husband and wife can’t trust each other.

Even after arriving in South Korea, it’s dangerous. As a North Korean defector, I need to be careful from the spies to protect my relatives inside North Korea.

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.

I’ve consciously tried not to romanticize anything, especially not intelligence work. I’ve always said that I’ve been writing a series of episodic, naturalistic novels. The people just happen to be spies, politicians, civil servants.

I would have loved to have met some former spies, but they don’t readily advertise themselves unless they’re not living in Moscow, and even then. I’m sure I’ve met some without realizing it.

My siblings and I had this theory that my parents were spies.

The government does not deny it routinely spies to advance American economic advantage, which is part of its broad definition of how it protects American national security.

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

We need spies that look like their targets, CIA officers who speak the dialects terrorists use, and FBI agents who can speak to Muslim women who might be intimidated by men.

The fact of the matter is that the United States faces real threats from criminals, terrorists, spies, and malicious cyber actors.

I think I’m always interested in the people who aren’t generals or master spies or royalty. The people caught in the crossfire.

The consequences of leaking sensitive information is that Americans and coalition forces die, and we lose trust with foreign spies, and our national security is put at risk.

I guess I was just a young, fun-loving kid! Me and my older brother was always quoting ‘Coming to America,’ ‘Spies Like Us,’ ’48 Hours,’ and all those movies, just having fun amongst ourselves.

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

I love the combination of the words ‘spies’ and ‘Balkans.’ It’s like meat and potatoes.

I went to grad school with the grand plan of getting my Ph.D. and writing weighty, Tudor-Stuart-set historical fiction – from which I emerged with a law degree and a series of light-hearted historical romances about flower-named spies during the Napoleonic wars.

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

The commanding general publishes, for the information of all concerned, that hereafter all persons found within our lines who commit acts for the benefit of the enemies of our country will be tried as spies or traitors, and, if convicted, will suffer death.

I was with the CIA for only three years. I worked in the Directorate of Operations, which is now called the National Clandestine Service. It’s the part of the organization where the spies live. I didn’t have much experience beyond the training.

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

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

Books about spies and traitors – and the congressional hearings that follow the exposure of traitors – generally assume that false-negative errors are much worse than false-positive errors.

In basic training we had been told to watch out for Japanese spies.

I love the idea of spies in love. How would it work between two people who were so programmed to lie and be suspicious, who have a whole life based on pretence?

Most people like to read about intrigue and spies. I hope to provide a metaphor for the average reader’s daily life. Most of us live in a slightly conspiratorial relationship with our employer and perhaps with our marriage.

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.

That world of spies and espionage, there’s a coldness to it. That’s what makes those worlds fascinating – and what makes le Carre’s work so interesting.

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.

I served 10 years on the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, and I had the distinct privilege of meeting with real U.S. spies throughout the globe.