- Toby Esterhase: At a certain age a man's got to be what he deserves. I spent fifteen years at the Circus trying to be an English gentleman. You know what I am now? A cheap Austro-Hungarian in expensive clothes. I've come home.
- Connie Sachs: George Smiley, the Chelsea Pensioner, God help us! Fought every war since Thermopylae, hot, cold and deep-frozen! Give it up. Be like the old fool here. Grab yourself a bit of love and wait for Armageddon.
- George Smiley: That's the worry, you see. Cause and effect. Toby quarrels with Vladimir one day. Vladimir get shot with a Russian gun the next. In police terms that's what they call an embarrassing chain of events.
- Madame Ostrakova: I did not dare to call the police. Who are the police today? We should have a police to CATCH the police!
- Connie Sachs: Is that booze you're toting in your pocket, or a bloody great gun?
- George Smiley: It's fatal either way.
- Connie Sachs: Oh, goody, let's have lots!
- Connie Sachs: How's the demon wife?
- George Smiley: Flourishing, I gather.
- Connie Sachs: You gather? Wish you would gather. Either gather her up for good, or drop her down a hole.
- George Smiley: You know why they call Karla "The Sandman", don't you? He has a way of putting to sleep whomever gets too close to him.
- George Smiley: Nobody knows the full story except Connie.
- Connie Sachs: Mice eaten the files, have they?
- George Smiley: You know how mice are.
- Connie Sachs: I know how rats are. How is the bastard, anyway?
- George Smiley: Which one?
- George Smiley: I need your memory, Con.
- Connie Sachs: Bust. Out of order. I've discovered love since we parted. Addles the hormones, rots the teeth.