Charles McCarry

“Usually after finishing a novel, I have a head full of bad ideas for the next one.”

“I've consciously tried not to romanticize anything, especially not intelligence work. I've always said that I've been writing a series of episodic, naturalistic novels. The people just happe...”

“I have to tell you, I'm a happy man. I've lived the life I wanted to live. I've written the books I wanted to write. No publisher has ever even suggested that I change so much as a phrase -...”

“Anything that's secret, clandestine, loaded with such a supercargo of speculation, misinformation, disinformation and, for that matter, accurate revelations, creates an appetite.”

“As an old man who remembers the intellectual exhilaration and the pleasure of having done good work that characterized the CIA when it was young, I wonder if it might not be better to speak...”

“Richard M. Helms, the first director of Central Intelligence to rise from the ranks, was fond of saying that the CIA had been founded to make sure that there would never be another Pearl Har...”