(re an antique book on his desk) Oliver, would you mind leaving that alone? It's not mine, and it's worth half the gross national product.
Played by Alec Guinness
Smiley's People · 21 quotes
Most-quoted character in Smiley's People: in 14 of its 21 quotes
Most scenes with: Toby Esterhase (5), Saul Enderby (2)
Lines by George Smiley 2
(on Guillam's Porsche) What a perfectly revolting little car! How ever will we all fit in?
Scenes with George Smiley 12
CSConnie Sachs
Is that booze you're toting in your pocket, or a bloody great gun?
George SmileyIt's fatal either way.
CSConnie Sachs
Oh, goody, let's have lots!
This an interrogation, George?
George SmileyYou know me, Toby.
Sure I know you. You want matches so you can burn my feet?
George, do me a favor, okay? You want a Hungarian babysitter someday, call me. You go messing around with creeps like Kirov and Leipzig, you better have a creep like Toby look after you. You're an old spy in a hurry, George. You used to say they were the worst.
George SmileyOh they are, Toby, they are.
FFerguson
I'm still on the side of the angels.
George SmileyI didn't know we had any angels.
George SmileyIn my time, Peter Guillam, I've seen Whitehall skirts go up and come down again. I've listened to all the excellent argument for doing nothing, and reaped the consequent frightful harvest. I've watched people hop up and down and call it progress. I've seen good men go to the wall and the idiots get promoted with a dazzling regularity. All I'm left with is me and thirty-odd years of cold war without the option.
PGPeter Guillam
So what does that mean in little words?
George SmileyIt means that if a rogue elephant, to use Saul Enderby's happy phrase, charges at me out of the thicket of my past and gives me a second shot at it, I intend to shoot it dead - but with the minimum of force.
George SmileyIt's simply a question of whether your Service wants the product. I can't see that anything else is ultimately of very much importance.
Can't you, by God! Oh, I want him all right. I want the Mona Lisa, and the Chairman of the Chinese People's Republic, and next year's winner of the Irish Sweep. I want Karla sitting in the hot seat at Sarratt, coughing out his life story to the inquisitors. I want the American Cousins to eat out of my hand for years to come. I want the whole ball game, of course I do.
It isn't some wicked Bolshie plot, is it, George, to lure us to our ultimate destruction?
George SmileyI'm afraid we're no longer worth the candle, Saul.
George SmileySo how [security] conscious is he?
George, he's Russian, okay? The Russians think the butterflies are spying on them.
George SmileySo which way will he jump when we hit him?
Burning, George, that's always a hazard, know what I mean? Some guys get heroic and want to die for their countries suddenly. Other guys roll over and lie still the moment you put the arm on them. Burning, that touches the stubbornness in certain people.
Grigoriev has a salad. She has steak and chips, glass of beer, and a slice of cake. George, the guy will fold, believe me! You never had a wife like that.
George SmileyNo, I don't think I ever did.
You think he wants to be locked up in a two-room flat in Moscow with that bitch for the rest of his life? Ha-ha, don't worry.
George SmileyYou are Counselor Anton Grigoriev of the Soviet Embassy in Berne, yes?
AGAnton Grigoriov
Grigoriev? I am Grigoriev. Yes, well done! I am Grigoriev! And who are you, please? Al Capone? Who are you? And why do you rumble at me like a commissar?
(last lines)
PGPeter Guillam
George, you won.
George SmileyDid I? Yes... yes, I suppose I did.
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