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"I am just going outside and may be some time." 17.03.1912 on Scott's ill-fated Antarctic expedition

Capt Lawrence Oates

"It's a very uneven relationship, to put it mildly ... the name of the British game is to show up with one card and expect to call all the shots." He suggests that claims GCHQ remained a world-class player were self-delusion by the 1980s. 'Technology has changed so much that what the British brought in WWII, they do not bring any more. They had a great tradition for a kind of eccentric cryptanalysis. Well, today that and 79 cents will only buy you a cup of coffee at 7-11. Today, this business requires huge investment and Britain doesn't have that."

"Director NSA 1985-89 William Odom

"We preferred to burn our homes, blow up our bridges, rob our banks and saddle ourselves with millions of debt ... and now we wonder why the Orangemen are not hopping over the border like fleas to come under our jurisdiction. "

Irish VP Kevin O'Higgins.

"It is one thing to shout for peace, but quite another to encourage the obvious enemy by saying in advance that you won't fight in any circumstances." [1939]

I learned how easy it was, if one was so inclined, to build up a report into rather more than it was worth, and how some people would cover hours of fornication with some very dubious intelligence as the end result. I began to see how all-important was the job of the man at the desk, analysing it all. I also saw how vital it was sometimes to provide more material than was really necessary. It was the total output, the useless and the useful, which really helped the interpreter of intelligence in the end." [p. 49].

"It is no use applying [a study of character] simply to others, if one doesn't apply it to oneself. Don't let us forget that it can enable us to study and guard against our own weaknesses." [p. 103]

"It is always worth while understanding the other person's religious background, what he thinks and feels, or indeed if he has no such thoughts at all. Intelligence is all about what people think and feel." [p. 112].

"The idea that you can trap the IRA with a criminal buffoon is one of the wilder fantasies this side of the Irish Sea." [on intelligence agents]

"Life could be regarded as a series of concentric circles moving from the individual at the centre through the family to school, the district and then outwards to the world. All should be governed by the same principles of honesty, enthusiasm and loyalty." [p. 115]

"Personally I believe in training coupled with intuition and not in luck."

"I am become death, destroyer of worlds."