Quotes by Ian Fleming

Theres a Good Book about goodness and how to be good and so forth, but theres no Evil Book about how to be evil and how to be bad. The Devil had no prophets to write his Ten Commandments, and no team of authors to write his biography. His case has gone completely by default. We know nothing about him but a lot of fairy stories from our parents and schoolmasters. He has no book from which we can learn the nature of evil in all its forms, with parables about evil people, proverbs about evil people, folklore about evil people. All we have is the living example of people who are least good, or our own intuition.

Now that little problem of yours, this business of not knowing good men from bad men and villains from heroes and so forth...Theres still plenty for you to do. And youll do it. And when you fall in love and have a mistress or a wife and children to look after, it will all seem easier. He opened the door but stopped on the threshold. Surround yourself with human beings, my dear. They are easier to fight for than principles. He laughed. But dont let me down and become human yourself. We would lose such a wonderful machine. With a wave of his hand he shut the door.

From the first, Istanbul had given him the impression of a town where, with the night, horror creeps out of the stones. It seemed to him a town the centuries had so drenched in blood and violence that, when daylight went out, the ghosts of its dead were its only population.

Who is this man?Chinaman, or rather half Chinese and half German. Got a daft name. Calls himself Doctor No - Doctor Julius No.No? Spelt like Yes?Thats right.

Each dark conjecture came and for a moment settled like a vulture on Bonds shoulder and croaked into his ear that he had been a blind fool.

In angry protest the red telephone splintered the silence.

Today we are fighting Communism. Okay. If Id 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.

The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success

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

Outside the bus the smell of sulphur hit Bond with sickening force. It was a horrible smell, from somewhere down in the stomach of the world.

Prohibition is the trigger of crime.

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

Worry is a dividend paid to disaster before it is due.

...Goldfinger could not have known that high tension was Bonds natural way of life and that pressure and danger relaxed him.

Danger, like a third man, was standing in the room.

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

Bond had taken her to the station and had kissed her once hard on the lips and had gone away. It hadnt been love, but a quotation had come into Bonds mind as his cab moved out of Pennsylvania station: Some love is fire, some love is rust. But the finest, cleanest love is lust.

The naked man who lay splayed out on his face beside the swimming pool might have been dead.

Champagne and Benzedrine! Never again.

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