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Len Deighton
Reference material by Wikiquote contributors. This retains its source identity and is not 411 news reporting.
Leonard Cyril Deighton (18 February 1929 – 15 March 2026) was an English novelist, historian and cookery writer. His many spy thrillers include The IPCRESS File (1962), a a film version was released in 1965.
Quotes
The factory workers say that it's impossible to do anything right. If you arrive five minutes early you are a saboteur; if you arrive five minutes late you are betraying socialism; if you arrive on time they say, "Where did you get the watch?"
Funeral in Berlin (1964; repr. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966) pp. 144-5
Described there as a joke current in 1960s Czechoslovakia
Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Yes? Well socialism is exactly the reverse.
Funeral in Berlin (1964; repr. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966) p. 145
Another Czech joke
Progress is man's indifference to the lessons of history.
An Expensive Place to Die, Jonathan Cape (1967) Ch. 39
The tragedy of marriage is that while all women marry thinking that their man will change, all men marry believing their wife will never change.
London Match (London: Hutchinson, 1985) p. 18
"...But love is like the measles; the later in life it affects you, the more severe the consequences""Is there anything you can take for it?""Only wedding vows"
Charity (1997; Harper Paperback, p. 280)
"When old men decided to barter young men for pride and profit, the transaction was called war."
Eleven Declarations of War (London: Harcourt Brace, 1975) p. 11
External links
Len Deighton at IMDb
Category:1929 births
Category:2026 deaths
Category:People from London
Category:Novelists from England
Category:Historians from England
Category:Screenwriters from England
Category:Illustrators