John le Carre was at best ambivalent about film adaptations. "Having your book turned into a movie," he once remarked, "is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes."

["Artists, in my experience, have very little center," Le Carre once told his publisher's sales force (Knopf). "They fake. They are not the real thing. They are spies. I am no exception."]

[Among the terms adopted by the intelligence community after appearing on the pages of Le Carre's novels? Honey-traps (sexual entrapment), babysitters (bodyguards), and moles (deep-penetration agents).]