Surround yourself with human beings, my dear James. They are easier to fight for than principles.
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.
Never job backwards. What might have been was a waste of time.
Bond reflected that good Americans were fine people and that most of them seemed to come from Texas.
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.
It was the short men that caused all the trouble in the world.
Men want a woman whom they can turn on and off like a light switch.
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.
At gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.
Hope makes a good breakfast. Eat plenty of it.
Most marriages don’t add two people together. They subtract one from the other.
He could not just wear a watch. It had to be a Rolex.
My mental hands were empty, and I felt I must do something as a counterirritant or antibody to my hysterical alarm at getting married at the age of 43.
A woman should be an illusion.
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 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, betray and the bullet would never miss.
Everything I write has a precedent in truth.
Englishmen are so odd. They are like a nest of Chinese boxes. It takes a very long time to get to the centre of them. When one gets there the result is unrewarding, but the process is instructive and entertaining.
Like all harsh, cold men, he was easily tipped over into sentiment.
I am a poet in deeds – not often in words.