Ian Fleming Quotes

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

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

Hope makes a good breakfast. Eat plenty of it.

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

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.

Worry is a dividend paid to disaster before it is due

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

Never say 'no' to adventures.

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.

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

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

Loneliness becomes a lover, solitude a darling sin.

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

Everyone has the revolver of resignation in his pocket.

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

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.

A woman can put up with almost anything; anything but indifference.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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