Back in the 1950s, there was a top-secret program code-named SUNTAN being conducted at a top-secret facility called Skunk Works. Its objective? To develop a liquid-hydrogen-powered spy plane. Because liquid hydrogen is incredibly volatile, early experiments were conducted inside a bomb shelter with eight-foot-thick walls.

- Annie Jacobsen

I've loved thrillers and spy stories since I was a kid. It's probably not a bad rule of thumb to write the kinds of stories you love to read.

- Barry Eisler

I have a long-standing interest in what I like to think of as 'forbidden knowledge:' methods of unarmed killing, lock picking, breaking and entry, spy stuff, and other things that the government wants only a few select individuals to know.

- Barry Eisler

The Confederates had suspected Wild Bill of being a spy for two or three days, and had watched him closely.

- Buffalo Bill

I think 'I Spy,' still when you look at it, speaks volumes in terms of propaganda for equality. It's just magnificent.

- Bill Cosby

I've always wanted to play a spy, because it is the ultimate acting exercise. You are never what you seem.

- Benedict Cumberbatch

Ghostery lets you spy on the spies in your computer. For each web page you visit, this extension uncloaks some - but not all - of the invisible tracking software that is working behind the scenes.

- Barton Gellman

I think, primarily, we love spy thrillers, and I think, instinctively, we love the tension that those thrillers can bring.

- Alistair Petrie

Obviously, 'Homeland' is not just a spy thriller. It's more than that, but 'Tyrant' will be a bit more of a palace drama. It'll be about the families, but there will be political intrigue as well.

- Adam Rayner

'Homeland' is a thriller with a lot of cloak and dagger spy stuff, which is one of the things that makes it so much fun.

- Adam Rayner

Spy novels are traditionally about lone wolves, but how many people actually live like that?

- Alan Furst

It's a thrilling world, and people really like stories about secrets, which is the essence of a spy drama.

- Andrew Scott

I probably read Harriet the Spy about 70,000 times.

- Alison Bechdel

Everybody calls everybody a spy, secretly, in Russia, and everybody is under surveillance. You never feel safe.

- Agnes Smedley

Glass is the world's worst spy camera. If you want to surreptitiously take photos, I would not use Glass.

- Astro Teller

I think in some ways what Snowden is, is he's a mix of a cold war spy novel and post-9/11 spy novel.

- Alex Berenson

I wrote three mysteries and then a contemporary spy novel that was unbelievably derivative - completely based on 'The Conversation,' the movie with Gene Hackman. Amazingly, the character in the book looks exactly like... Gene Hackman.

- Alan Furst

I think I honestly invented my own genre, the historical spy novel.

- Alan Furst

Graham Greene's work must be included in any survey of top-rank spy novels, and 'Our Man in Havana' may be his best.

- Alan Furst

I invented the historical spy novel.

- Alan Furst