Highlights
Sometimes, Tom, we have to do a thing in order to find out the reason for it. Sometimes our actions are questions, not answers.
Like Rick he was learning to live on several planes at once. The art of it was to forget everything except the ground you stood on and the face you spoke from at that moment.
The Pym who does nothing cynically, nothing without conviction. Who sets events in motion in order to become their victim, which he calls decision, and ties himself into pointless relationships, which he calls loyalty. Then waits for the next event to get him out of the last one, which he calls destiny.
And what am I thinking? I am thinking that a man who cannot speak clearly cannot think clearly.
In every operation there is an above the line and a below the line. Above the line is what you do by the book. Below the line is how you do the job.
Today of course I know the poor souls for what they were: members of that large, lost family of the British unprofessional classes that seems to wander by right between the secret services, the automobile clubs and the richer private charities. Not bad men by any means. Not dishonest men. Not stupid. But men who see the threat to their class as synonymous with the threat to England and never wandered far enough to know the difference.
Love is whatever you can still betray, he thought. Betrayal can only happen if you love.
The privileged English assets of good manners and bad learning have never been more to his advantage.
You are a perfect spy. All you need is a cause.