Thornton Wilder Quotes

I really wanted to be a spy. I guess it's a bit like acting, where you play a role.

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

There are few archbishops in espionage. He's on our side and that's all that matters. Besides, one needn't ask him to one's club.

I would be a terrible CIA officer in real life.

Since real spies are so good, you never really know what actual spying is. But I do think spying is a lot more dangerous than we are led to believe.

There is only one law of espionage—there are always going to be spies.

If you’re going to be involved with espionage, you’ve got to be motivated. It’s not fun and games. It’s dirty and dangerous. There’s always the chance that you’re going to get burned.

I spent a whole career infiltrating places.

You couldn't trust anyone or anything that belonged to the world of espionage.

You could say that all novels are spy novels and all novelists are spy masters.

I saw a limit to what I was giving as kind of a scam I was running on the KGB, by giving them people that I knew were their double agents fed to us.

In my head, I think I'd make a perfect spy, but in reality, I don't think I'd fare very well.

It's rather fun writing a female spy, because she has so much more kit. Bond never carried a hair dryer or a makeup bag. And he certainly didn't wear an uplift bra.

I am always up to steal secrets from smart people.

Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.

Since that time I have had continuous contact with the persons who were completely unknown to me, except that I knew they would hand whatever information I gave them to the Russian authorities.

I'd be a terrible secret agent. I can't keep a secret and I'm not sneaky.

I always liked spy stories.

It was awesome and liberating to play a Russian spy.

What I really found was that the one similarity between 'Covert Affairs' and 'Fair Game' is a deep love and admiration and fascination with the home life of a spy.

I've always wanted to play a spy, because it is the ultimate acting exercise. You are never what you seem.

I knew with Snape I was working as a double agent, as it turns out, and a very good one at that.

My name is E. Howard Hunt. I'm currently retired from more than 22 years in the profession of espionage.

Espionage is largely separate from the mainstream of foreign policy … you nail the spy and you punish him, and you move on.

Intelligence without counter-intelligence is useless.