Control: A shark can smell blood a mile off when he's hungry, and Mundt is hungry for our blood.

Control: We have to live without sympathy, don't we? We can't do that forever. One can't stay out of doors all the time. One needs to come in from the cold.
Alec Leamas: I'm an operator, Control, just an operator.
Control: There's a vacancy in Banking Section which might suit you.
Alec Leamas: Sorry, I'm an operational man. I'll take my pension. I don't want a desk job.
Control: You don't know what's on the desk.
Alec Leamas: Paper!
Control: [after taking a long sip from his tea cup] I want you to stay, uh, out in the cold... a little longer.

Ashe: [Approaching Leamas who is sitting on a bench] Do you like birds? The ones with the white collars are wild. The others are domesticated. With people it's the other way around.
Alec Leamas: [He snickers]
Ashe: Bird-watching's one of my hobbies. I often come here.
Alec Leamas: Do you also often come to Wormwood Scrubs Prison at eight o'clock in the morning to watch birds?
Ashe: Yes, jailbirds. They're my other hobby.
Alec Leamas: Only the young ones, surely!

Nan Perry: Well, they returned you to me. I'm so grateful. So grateful! I cut tonight's party meeting.
Alec Leamas: Oh, well, well! Thank you for putting me above history.