“The important thing to know about an assassination or attempted assassination is not who fired the shot, but who paid for the bullet.”
– The Mask of Dimitrios
“Never tell a lie when you can bullshit your way through it.”
– Dirty Story
“Propaganda always begins with words, but soon it proceeds to deeds. When there are no facts to support lies, facts must be made.”
– The Mask of Dimitrios
“Reality is always so obstructive.”
– Epitaph for a Spy
“For the sceptic there remains only one consolation: if there should be such a thing as superhuman Law, it is administered with sub-human inefficiency.”
– The Mask of Dimitrios
“Good’ did not triumph. ‘Evil’ did not triumph. The two resolved, destroyed each other and created new ‘evils’, new ‘goods’ which slew each other in their turn.”
– Epitaph for a Spy
“We can learn only in the expectation of life. Europe is too preoccupied with its destruction to concern itself with such things. A condemned man is interested only in himself, the passage of hours and such intimations of immortality as he can conjure from the recesses of his mind.”
– Journey into Fear
“I tell you this, my friend; all men are cowards. They dislike a fact except when it is so wrapped up in lies and sentiments that the sharp edge of it cannot hurt them. When a man tells the truth he his, depend upon it, a dangerous man.”
– Epitaph for a Spy
“The duplicity of others must always be shocking when one is unconscious of one’s own.”
– The Mask of Dimitrios
“But when you have been nourishing your soul on expectation, reality is apt to be disappointing.”
– The Dark Frontier
“Of course I was exaggerating. But it is agreeable sometimes to talk in primary colours even if you have to think in greys”
– The Mask of Dimitrios
