Nicola Walker Quotes

'Homeland' is a thriller with a lot of cloak and dagger spy stuff, which is one of the things that makes it so much fun.

What I would love is a crossover between 'Royal Pains' and 'Burn Notice,' that we could be involved in some sort of gun play intrigue. I would really love that because we have no guns. We have nowhere near enough explosions and guns on the set.

Every time I tell someone that I'm doing 'Spooks,' they're like, 'Wow!' That's a guaranteed reaction. It's such a high-end show, it's so sexy and slick and smooth.

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.

When I think of a story, somehow it just always seems to come out involving spooks and spies and government skullduggery.

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

The world of spying is my genre. My struggle is to demystify, to de-romanticise the spook world, but at the same time harness it as a good story.

Young people looking for adventure fiction now generally turn to fantasy, but for those of a certain age, the spy thriller has long been the escape reading of choice.

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

Ian Fleming and Norman Felton were friends. 'U.N.C.L.E.' was basically a tongue-in-cheek 'Bond.' It wasn't quite as serious and dramatic as 'Bond,' nor did we have the budget for that.

Sometimes James Bond movies drive me crazy. They're fun to watch, but they don't have anything to do at all with what intelligence officers really do.

Normally in spy movies, the person that the hero deals with is at the centre of power, surrounded by video screens, and they're old and grizzled. I'm no stranger to that dynamic.

One of the things that distinguishes the CIA from the State Department is that the CIA is both asked to, and authorized to, steal secrets. So if the question is whether the CIA steals secrets, the answer is yes.

'Codename Baboushka' is an action-packed modern pulp spy thriller, in the sort of British tradition of 'Modesty Blaise', New Avengers and of course James Bond. It's a book about Contessa Annika Malikova, the last of a noble Russian line and an enigmatic, mysterious figure in New York high society.

Her Majesty's Secret Service wouldn't have me on the payroll.

CIA has more money: bigger houses than diplomats: bigger salaries: more weapons: more modern equipment

When I blew the whistle on the whole thing, it was [William J.] Casey who, I felt, regarded what I had done as treason.

I learned serving under William J. Casey, that the Clandestine Service is the heart and soul of the agency [the CIA]. It is also the part that can land you in jail.

Spies go undercover. They take on different personas.

I was raised with James Bond. I love James Bond movies. I would love to do a James Bond movie one day. Action is very cinematic.

I first learned the power of trust in the CIA. There is no question that when I joined the Agency as a covert operations officer, it was still run along the 'old boys' network' model.

I never worked for any secret service, certainly not the Israeli secret service.

'Game of Thrones' is the greatest thing I've ever been a part of.

Charles McCarry is the best modern writer on the subject of intrigue - by the breadth of Alan Furst, by the fathom of Eric Ambler, by any measure.

The Bond situations to me are so ridiculous, so outrageous. I mean, this man is supposed to be a spy, and yet everybody knows he's a spy.