Quotes by Ian Fleming

“Those who deserve to die, die the death they deserve.”

“Prohibition is the trigger of crime.”

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

“...Goldfinger could not have known that high tension was Bond's natural way of life and that pressure and danger relaxed him.”

“Bond had taken her to the station and had kissed her once hard on the lips and had gone away. It hadn't been love, but a quotation had come into Bond's mind as his cab moved out of Pennsylvania sta...”

“Champagne and Benzedrine! Never again.”

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

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

“Luck in all its moods had to be loved and not feared Bond saw luck as a woman, to be softly wooed or brutally ravaged, never pandered to or pursued. But he was honest enough to admit that he had ne...”

“Above all, he liked it that everything was one's own fault. There was only oneself to praise or blame. Luck was a servant and not a master. Luck had to be accepted with a shrug or taken advantage o...”

“The difference between a good golf shot and a bad one is the same as the difference between a beautiful and a plain woman --a matter of millimetres.”

“And people with obsessions, reflected Bond, were blind to danger.”

“[In Goldfinger, Pussy Galore] only needed the right man to come along and perform the laying on of hands in order to cure her psycho-pathological malady.”

“The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul erosion produced by high gambling — a compost of greed and fear and nervous tension — becomes unbeara...”

“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.”

“Bond insisted ordering Leiter's Haig-and-Haig on the rocks and then he looked carefully at the barman. A Dry Martini, he said. One. In a deep champagne goblet. Oui, monsieur. Just a moment. Three m...”

“I take a ridiculous pleasure in what I eat and drink. It come partly from being a bachelor, but mostly from a habit of taking a lot of trouble over details. It's very pernickety and oldmaidish real...”

“This country-right-or-wrong business is getting a little out-of-date. Today we are fighting Communism. Okay. If I’d been alive fifty years ago, the brand of Conservatism we have today would have be...”

“'I’m wondering whose side I ought to be on. I’m getting very sorry for the Devil and his disciples such as the good Le Chiffre. The Devil has a rotten time and I always like to be on the side of th...”

“It was the same with the whole Russian machine. Fear was the impulse. For them it was always safer to advance than retreat. Advance against the enemy and the bullet might miss you. Retreat, evade, ...”