Jeffrey Archer Quotes

When I was deputy chairman I could travel from Glasgow to Edinburgh without leaving Tory land. In a two-week period I covered every constituency in which we had an MP. There were 14. Now we have only one. We appear to have given up.

It's one of the ironies of mountaineering,' said Young, 'that grown men are happy to spend months preparing for a climb, weeks rehearsing and honing their skills, and at least a day attempting to reach the summit. And then, having achieved their goal, they spend just a few moments enjoying the experience, along with one or two equally certifiable companions who have little in common other than wanting to do it all again, but a little higher.

Some people standby you in your darkest hour while others walk away; only a select few march towards you and become even closer friends.

I have discovered with advancing years that few things are entirely black or white, but more often different shades of grey.

I feel I have had a very interesting life, but I am rather hoping there is still more to come. I still haven't captained the England cricket team, or sung at Carnegie Hall!

Time spent on preparation is seldom wasted.

If you make a deal with a fool, don't be surprised when they act foolishly.

Making a million legally has always been difficult. Making a million illegally has always been a little easier. Keeping a million when you have made it is perhaps the most difficult of all.

What I have found is that real friends stand by you.

While there may not be a book in every one of us, there is so often a damned good short story.

Never be frightened by those you assume have more talent than you do, because in the end energy will prevail. My formula is: energy plus talent and you are a king; energy and no talent and you are still a prince; talent and no energy and you are a pauper.

we all suffer in our different ways from being prisoners of birth.

I put £150,000 into the stage production of Grease and have got back £1.5 million so far. It has been a fantastic success.

When I was three, I wanted to be four. When I was four, I wanted to be prime minister.

I think when you've lost an election by 179, there's going to be a period of time after eighteen years in government when you can't do anything right, and people just kick you for the sake of it, will never admit they voted Conservative.

The worst moment of any campaign is waiting for the sun to rise on the morning of the battle

Actually, Sydney is my second favourite city on earth, I love Sydney, but this is the greatest.

I think my attitude to human beings has changed since leaving prison.

I want to be your stranger across a crowded room.

We all make mistakes but one has to move on.

Whenever you analyse anyone who has had any success and they're in the headlines, you will find they are human and make mistakes. I'm certainly that and I've made a lot of mistakes.

It is often spur-of-the-moment decisions, sometimes made by others, that can change our whole lives.

A strong man who has known power all his life may lose respect for that power. But a weak man knows the value of strength.

Birth is life's first lottery ticket.

Chatterers are a menace.

With torture ,as with making love, foreplay is the all important factor

War and Peace maddens me because I didn't write it myself, and worse, I couldn't.

And I did wonder - because it's now three years ago since I left prison - whether there would come a time when I would forget it, or it would be in the past as anything else might be - no, it's there every day of my life.

No time like the present

I was allowed to ring the bell for five minutes until everyone was in assembly. It was the beginning of power.

Are parents always more ambitious for their children than they are for themselves?

Sixty per cent of people entering prison today are illiterate.

I am currently doing about 30 charity auctions a year.

I find I don't learn a lot while I'm talking

A work of art is worth what someone will pay for it.

At the end of my trial, I was rather hoping the judge would send me to Australia for the rest of my life.

When a book comes out I wonder if one person will buy it. It's agony. Of course it's stupid, but it's agony.

I've loved art for more than 30 years.

I'm passionate again about writing. This is important to me; it's got to be the comeback book.

Well I think after leaving prison, and having written three diaries about life in prison, it became a sort of a new challenge to write another novel, to write a new novel.

But the thing I felt most strongly about, and put at the end of one of the prison diaries, was education.

I do greatly admire Australian artists.

There are defining moments in one's life when you learn about yourself, and you deposit that knowledge in the experience account, so you can draw on it at some later date.

I learnt a lot about myself, I learnt a lot about other people and the problems they have. If I was lucky enough to live to a hundred, how I will feel about two per cent of my life being that way, I don't know.

I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.

But I certainly made mistakes, for which I regret, I think most human beings in their lifetime make mistakes, mine ended up in two years prison - two very remarkable years from which I learnt a lot.

I'm vulgar, I'm a populist. But isn't that what the mayor should be?

Energy plus talent and you are a king, energy and no talent and you are still a prince, talent and no energy and you are a pauper

Well I certainly have learned and I hope I'm moving on and certainly two years of prison was a terrible punishment.

Who Saddam Hussein kills, dies.