Author: Charles Cumming

Cites

• John Masterman (1)
  • IN: A Colder War (2015) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: Certain persons... have a natural predilectioin to live in that curious world of espionage and deceit, and attach themselves with equal facility to one side or the other, so long as their craving for adventure of a rather macabre type is satisfied.
    FROM: The Double-Cross System, (1972), Book, UK
• Seamus Heaney (1)
  • IN: A Colder War (2015) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: ...You are neither here nor there. A hurry through which known and strange things pass As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.
    FROM: Postscript, (1996), Poem, Ireland
• L.P. Hartley (2)
  • IN: A Foreign Country (2012) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: ‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.’
    FROM: The Go-Between, (1953), Novel, UK
• Ernest Hemingway (1)
  • IN: The Spanish Game (2006) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: Madrid is a strange place anyway. I do not believe anyone likes it much when he first goes there. It has none of the look that you expect of Spain… Yet when you get to know it, it is the most Spanish of all cities, the best to live in, the finest people, and month in and month out the finest climate. While other big cities are all very representative of the province they are in, they are either Andalucian, Catalan, Basque, Aragonese, or otherwise provincial. It is in Madrid only that you get the essence… It makes you feel very badly, all question of immortality aside, to know that you will have to die and never see it again.
    FROM: Death in the Afternoon, (1932), Book, US
• Richard Ford (1)
  • IN: A Spy by Nature (2001) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: ‘I remember, in fact, the Lebanese woman I knew at Berkshire College saying to me, after I told her how much I loved her: “I’ll always tell you the truth, unless of course I’m lying to you.”’
    FROM: The Sportswriter, (1986), Novel, US
• Bruno Bettelheim (1)
  • IN: A Spy by Nature (2001) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: ‘If we hope to live not just from moment to moment, but in true consciousness of our existence, then our greatest need and most difficult achievement is to find meaning in our lives.’
    FROM: The Uses of Enchantment, (1976), Book, Austria
• W. Somerset Maugham (1)
  • IN: A Foreign Country (2012) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: ‘There’s just one thing I think you ought to know before you take on this job … If you do well you’ll get no thanks and if you get into trouble you’ll get no help. Does that suit you?’ ‘Perfectly.’ ‘Then I’ll wish you good afternoon.’
    FROM: Ashenden, (1927), Novel, UK
• Harold Macmillan (1)
  • IN: The Trinity Six (2011) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: You know, you should never catch a spy. Discover him and then control him, but never catch him. A spy causes far more trouble when he's caught.
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, UK