“Smiley was soaked to the skin and God as a punishment had removed all taxis from the face of London.”

“Treason is very much a matter of habit, Smiley decided.”

“The monstrosity of this, reaching Smiley through a thickening wall of spiritual exhaustion, left him momentarily speechless.”

“And your wife, she's in the pink and so on?" His expressions were also boyish. "Very bonny, thank you," said Smiley, trying gallantly to respond in kind.”

“Martindale had no valid claim on Smiley either professionally or socially. He worked on the fleshy side of the Foreign Office and his job consisted of lunching visiting dignitaries whom no one else would have entertained in his woodshed. He was a floating bachelor with a grey mane and that nimbleness which only fat men have.”

“[Smiley contemplates graffiti:]'Punk is destructive. Society does not need it.' The assertion caused him a moment's indecision. 'Oh, but society does,' he wanted to reply; 'society is an association of minorities.”

“I have a theory which I suspect is rather immoral,' Smiley went on, more lightly. 'Each of us has only a quantum of compassion. That if we lavish our concern on every stray cat, we never get to the centre of things.”