Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Quotes

George Smiley: I want to talk about loyalty, Toby. Control recruited you, didn't he? He found you starving in a museum in Vienna, a wanted man. He saved your life, I heard. And yet, when the time came... when it came to picking sides between him and Alleline, you didn't hesitate. It's understandable, perhaps, with your war experience. You survived this long, I suppose, because of

your ability to change sides, to serve any master.
Easterhase: What's... what's this about, George?
George Smiley: It's about which master you've been serving, Toby.

George Smiley: Is there anything you would like me to pass on to Ann?
Bill Haydon: That was nothing personal, George. You have to understand. Karla said that you were good; the one we had to worry about. If I were to known as Ann's lover, he'd figure that you wouldn't be able to see me straight. And he was right, up to a point...
George

Smiley: Up to a point.

Minister: I thought Lacon had made it clear to you: keep your nose bloody well out of Witchcraft's business!
George Smiley: It's Lacon's advice I'm following.
[to Lacon]
George Smiley: You told me to follow in Control's footsteps.
Minister: I wouldn't consider that sound advice, given the mess Control

left us with. It has taken Alleline - and if I may say so, myself - this long to get us back in the game.
George Smiley: The man Alleline and the others meet is called Polyakov. You believe his role is to bring information from Witchcraft to you. His real role is to receive information from the mole, to take back to Karla.
Minister: [laughing

incredulously] That... that's not possible.
George Smiley: Made possible, by you, in the house which you persuaded the Treasury to pay for.
Minister: Witchcraft's intelligence is genuine! It's been gold!
George Smiley: It's just enough glitter amongst the chickenfeed. Control didn't believe in miracles, and he didn't believe

in Witchcraft. But you were lazy, and you were greedy, and so you hounded him out of the Circus and you let Karla in. You've opened negotiations to exchange intelligence with the Americans...
[Realizing the implications of what Smiley is saying, the Minister starts to tremble]
George Smiley: What they tell the Circus, they'll be telling the Kremlin. Witchcraft's

information, the "gold" Karla let you have, it wasn't to lure you. It was to lure the Americans. Now... do you want to take credit for that?

Control: I know that Moscow has planted a mole, and I know it is one of five men.
[starts placing out chess pieces with photos on them]
Control: Alleline: Tinker. Haydon: Tailor. Bland: Soldier. We leave out "Sailor", too much like "Tailor". Esterhase: Poorman.
Jim Prideaux: And the fifth?
Control:

Smiley.

George Smiley: I met him once. Karla. In fifty-five. Moscow Centre was in pieces. Purge after purge. Half their agents were jumping ship and I traveled around signing them up. Hundreds of them. One of them was calling himself Gerstmann. He was on his way back to Russia, and we were pretty sure he was going to be executed. Plane had a twenty-four hour layover at Delhi, and that's

how long I had to convince him to come over to us instead of going home to die. Little room. I'm sitting here... he's sitting there. The Americans had had him tortured. No fingernails. It's incredibly hot. I'm very tired and all I want to do is get this over with and get back home. Things weren't going well with Ann. I give him the usual pitch: come to the West and we can give you a comfortable

life, after questioning. Or you can catch your plane and fly home and be shot. "Think of your wife. You have a wife, don't you? I brought you some cigarettes, by the way. Use my lighter. We could arrange for her to join you, we have a lot of stock to trade. If you go back, she'll be ostracized. Think of her. Think about how much she..." Kept harping on about the damn wife. Telling him more about

me than... Should have walked out, of course, but for some reason it seemed important to save this one. So I go on. "We are not so very different, you and I. We've both spent our lives looking for the weaknesses in one another's systems. Don't you think it's time to recognize there is as little worth on your side as there is on mine?"... Never said a word. Not one word.

Ricki Tarr: Mr Guillam, I'm sorry I was out for so long.
[Guillam attacks Tarr]
George Smiley: Ricki's been helping us, Peter! He's been telling us all about his adventures.
Peter Guillam: He's a double, George! There is no mole! Irina's been locked up by Moscow!
[turns on Tarr]
Peter Guillam: I

stole that, because of you! I spied on my own, because of him! Do you know how that makes me feel?