Ian Fleming Quotes

He could not just wear a watch. It had to be a Rolex.

I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.

Hope makes a good breakfast. Eat plenty of it.

You can get far in North America with laconic grunts. "Huh," "hun," and "hi!" in their various modulations, together with "sure," "guess so," "that so?" and "nuts!" will meet almost any contingency.

As a result of 50 years of emancipation, feminine qualities were dying out or being transferred to the males. Pansies of both sexes were everywhere, not yet completely homosexual, but confused not knowing what they were. The result was a herd of unhappy sexual misfits... the women wanting to dominate and the men to be nannied.

Older women are best because they always think they may be doing it for the last time.

A gentleman's choice of timepiece says as much about him as does his Saville Row suit.

People do connect me with James Bond simply because I happen to like scrambled eggs and short-sleeved shirts and some of the things that James Bond does, but I certainly haven't got his guts nor his very lively appetites.

Writing about 2,000 words in three hours every morning, 'Casino Royale' dutifully produced itself. I wrote nothing and made no corrections until the book was finished. If I had looked back at what I had written the day before I might have despaired.

You only live twice. Once when you are born and once when you look death in the face.

History is moving pretty quickly these days, and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts.

All the greatest men are maniacs. They are possessed by a mania which drives them forward towards thier goal. The great scientists, the philosophers, the religious leaders - all maniacs. What else but a blind singlenee of purpose could have given focus to thier genius, would have kept them in the groove of purpose. Mania... is as priceless as genius.

Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.

Loneliness becomes a lover, solitude a darling sin.

Everyone has the revolver of resignation in his pocket.

Worry is a dividend paid to disaster before it is due

When I wrote the first [Bond novel] in 1953, I wanted Bond to be an extremely dull, uninteresting man to whom things happened... when I was casting around for a name for my protagonist I thought by God, [James Bond] is the dullest name I ever heard.

I always make it a rule never to look back. Otherwise, I'd ask myself how I could write such piffle and live with myself, day after day.

Love of life is born of the awareness of death, of the dread of it.

Unfortunately most ways of making big money take a long time. By the time one has made the money one is too old to enjoy it.

He was a secret agent, and still alive thanks to his exact attention to the detail of his profession.

People are islands,' she said. 'They don't really touch. However close they are, they're really quite separate. Even if they've been married for fifty years.

A medium Vodka dry Martini - with a slice of lemon peel. Shaken and not stirred.

I think it's the same with all the relationships between a man and a woman. They can survive anything so long as some kind of basic humanity exists between the two people. When all kindness has gone, when one person obviously and sincerely doesn't care if the other is alive or dead, then it's just no good. -- from Quantum of Solace

Bond didn't defend the practice. He simply maintained that the more effort and ingenuity you put into gambling, the more you took out.

Today we are fighting Communism. Okay. If I'd been alive fifty years ago, the brand of Conservatism we have today would have been damn near called Communism and we should have been told to go and fight that. History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts.

A dry martini,' he said. 'One. In a deep champagne goblet.' ... Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?

The gain to the winner is always less than the loss to the loser.

Surround yourself with human beings, my dear James. They are easier to fight for than principles.

If I wait for the genius to come, it just doesn't arrive.

If you interrupt the writing of fast narrative with too much introspection and self-criticism, you will be lucky if you write 500 words a day and you will be disgusted with them into the bargain. By following my formula, you write 2,000 words a day and you aren’t disgusted with them until the book is finished, which will be in about six weeks.

Smoking I find the most ridiculous of all the varieties of human behavior and practically the only one that is entirely against nature. Can you imagine a cow or any animal taking a mouthful of smoldering straw then breathing in the smoke and blowing it out through its nostrils?

Against the background of this luminous and sparkling stage Bond stood in the sunshine and felt his mission to be incongruous and remote and his dark profession an affront to his fellow actors.

It's no good protecting people or even looking after them past a certain point. One can't grasp more than a piece of anyone. Most of the rest can only be protected by themselves and the remainder by hired specialists and doctors and dentists and professional protectors.

It’s just that I’d rather die of drink than of thirst.

I am a poet in deeds--not often in words.

The conventional parabola--sentiment, the touch of the hand, the kiss, the passionate kiss, the feel of the body, the climax in the bed, then more bed, then less bed, then the boredom, the tears and the final bitterness--was to him shameful and hypocritical.

Never job backwards. What might have been was a waste of time.

Never say 'no' to adventures.

Bond reflected that good Americans were fine people and that most of them seemed to come from Texas.

There is only one recipe for a best seller and it is a very simple one. You have to get the reader to turn over the page.

Diamonds are forever.

Like all harsh, cold men, he was easily tipped over into sentiment.

Most marriages don't add two people together. They subtract one from the other.

The World Is Not Enough

They want us dead,' said Bond calmly. 'So we have to stay alive.

I have always smoked and drunk and loved too much. In fact I have lived not too long but too much. One day the Iron Crab will get me. Then I shall have died of living too much.

As for sex, well, I mean sex is a perfectly respectable subject as far as Shakespeare is concerned. I mean, all history is love and violence.

At gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.

It was the short men that caused all the trouble in the world.