Top 30 Dick Francis Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Good manners are a sign of strength.”

— Dick Francis

2. “Physics is the science of all the tremendously powerful invisibilities – of magnetism, electricity, gravity, light, sound, cosmic rays. Physics is the science of the mysteries of the universe. How could anyone think it dull?”

— Dick Francis

3. “People always kill Caesar. Don’t trust anyone.”

— Dick Francis

4. “Some are born weird, some achieve it, others have weirdness thrust upon them.”

— Dick Francis

5. “Reason said it was wasn’t long enough. Instinct said it was.”

— Dick Francis

6. “Thought before action, if you have time.”

— Dick Francis

7. “But people as a rule believe only what they want to believe, and if you tell them anything else they’ll call you a trouble-maker and get rid of you and never give you your job back, even if what you said is proved spot on right by time.”

— Dick Francis

8. “Historically, more people have died of religion than cancer.”

— Dick Francis

9. “But one discarded dreams and got dressed, and made what one could of the day.”

— Dick Francis

10. “Stifling hope is a hopeless business.”

— Dick Francis

11. “A bully to the weak but a bootlicker to the strong.”

— Dick Francis

12. “Emotion is a rotten base for politics.”

— Dick Francis

13. “Logic doesn’t stop you feeling. You can behave logically and it can hurt like hell. Or it can comfort you. Or release you. Or all at the same time.”

— Dick Francis

14. “A jump jockey has to throw his heart over the fence – and then go over and catch it.”

— Dick Francis

15. “The only thing better than getting away with doing a crime was to get someone else convicted for having done it.”

— Dick Francis

16. “The dignity of man was everywhere tissue-paper thin.”

— Dick Francis

17. “I guessed life was like that. You gained and you lost, and if you saved anything from the ruins, even if only a shred of self-respect, it was enough to take you through the next bit.”

— Dick Francis

18. “Everyone journeys through character as well as through time. The person one becomes depends on the person one has been.”

— Dick Francis

19. “I looked into his sandy brown eyes, at one with the hair. At the business- like outward presentation of the man who daily printed sneers, innuendo, distrust and spite and spoke without showing a trace of them. ‘Off the record,’ I said,‘bash his face in’.”

— Dick Francis

20. “Life has a way of kicking one along like a football, or so I’ve found. Fate had never dealt me personally a particularly easy time, but that was OK, that was normal. Most people, it seemed to me, took their turn to be football. Most survived. Some didn’t.”

— Dick Francis

21. “Love’s easy to learn. It’s like taking a risk. You set your mind on it and refuse to be afraid, and in no time you feel terrifically exhilarated and all your inhibitions fly out of the window.”

— Dick Francis

22. “Writing a novel proved to be the hardest, most self-analyzing task I had ever attempted, far worse than an autobiography: and its rewards were greater than I expected.”

— Dick Francis

23. “I’d always found goodness more interesting then evil, though I was aware this wasn’t the most general view. To my mind, it took more work and more courage to be good, an opinion continually reinforced by my own shortcomings.”

— Dick Francis

24. “Tyrants come and go, tyranny is constant.”

— Dick Francis

25. “It’s difficult to say just where a marriage goes wrong, because the accepted reason often isn’t the real one.”

— Dick Francis

26. “I smiled into the clever eyes. “Find out for me,” I said, “whether Oliver.”

— Dick Francis

27. “I stood on the outside of disaster, looking in.”

— Dick Francis

28. “Infinite sadness is not to trust an old friend.”

— Dick Francis

29. “Yet all we had was here and now, and here and now was always where the struggle toward goodness had to be fought. Toward virtue, morality, uprightness, order: call it what one liked. A long ever-recurring battle.”

— Dick Francis

30. “I inherited my brother’s life. Inherited his desk, his business, his gadgets, his enemies, his horses and his mistress. I inherited my brother’s life, and it nearly killed me.”

— Dick Francis

31. “Lightheartedness was a treasure in a world too full of sorrows, a treasure little regarded and widely forfeited to agression, greed and horrendous tribal rituals.”

— Dick Francis

32. “Be grateful for villainy, I thought. The jobs of millions depended on it, Gerard’s included. Police, lawyers, tax inspectors, prison warders, court officials, security guards, locksmiths and people making burglar alarms. Where would they be the world over but for the multiple faces of Cain. “Gerard,” I said.”

— Dick Francis

33. “Beach’s conspicuous intelligence would take him far if only he would stir himself to choose a direction.”

— Dick Francis

34. “I doubt if there is such a thing as a wholly free choice, because one’s choices are rooted in one’s personality.”

— Dick Francis