Top 180 Ian Fleming Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “You never get real adventures without a bit of risk somewhere.”

— Ian Fleming

52. “I don’t regard James Bond precisely as a hero, but at least he does get on and do his duty, in an extremely corny way.”

— Ian Fleming

53. “You start to die the moment you are born. The whole of life is cutting through the pack with death. So take it easy.”

— Ian Fleming

54. “Only law firm out there’s called Smith and Wesson.”

— Ian Fleming

55. “We’re both travelling bad roads and all bad roads lead to the bad town.”

— Ian Fleming

56. “Because people are very careful with the secrets of their own business doesn’t mean that they’ll be careful with the secrets of yours.”

— Ian Fleming

57. “By now it was dawn – about five o’clock, Bond guessed – and he reflected that a mile or two on was the turning to Le Chiffre’s villa. He had not thought that they would take Vesper there. Now that he realized that Vesper had only been a sprat to catch a mackerel the whole picture became clear.”

— Ian Fleming

58. “You start to die the moment you are born. The whole of life is cutting through the pack with death. So take it easy. Light a cigarette and be grateful you are still alive as you suck the smoke deep into your lungs. Your stars have already let you come quite a long way since you left your mother’s womb and whimpered at the cold air of the world.”

— Ian Fleming

59. “The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning.”

— Ian Fleming

60. “Even the highest tree has an axe waiting at its foot.”

— Ian Fleming

61. “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 never yet been made to suffer by cards or by women. One day, and he accepted the fact, he would be brought to his knees by love or by luck. When that happened he knew that he too would be branded with the deadly question-mark he recognized so often in others, the promise to pay before you have lost: the acceptance of fallibility.”

— Ian Fleming

62. “Mine’s Bond – James Bond.”

— Ian Fleming

63. “He was a secret agent, and still alive thanks to his exact attention to the detail of his profession.”

— Ian Fleming

64. “Most marriages don’t add two people together. They subtract one from the other.”

— Ian Fleming

65. “Surround yourself with human beings, my dear James. They are easier to fight for than principles.’ He laughed. ‘But don’t let me down and become human yourself. We would lose such a wonderful machine.’ With a wave of the hand he shut the door. ‘Hey,’ shouted Bond. But the footsteps went quickly off down the passage.”

— Ian Fleming

66. “I don’t drink tea. I hate it. It’s mud. Moreover it’s one of the main reasons for the downfall of the British Empire. Be a good girl and make me some coffee.”

— Ian Fleming

67. “A medium Vodka dry Martini – with a slice of lemon peel. Shaken and not stirred.”

— Ian Fleming

68. “Don’t lose faith in your stars.”

— Ian Fleming

69. “It was a room-shaped room with furniture-shaped furniture, and dainty curtains.”

— Ian Fleming

70. “People do connect me with James Bond simply because I happen to like scrambled eggs and short-sleeved shirts and some of the things that James Bond does, but I certainly haven’t got his guts nor his very lively appetites.”

— Ian Fleming

71. “Miss Moneypenny would have been desirable but for eyes which were cool and direct and quizzical.”

— Ian Fleming

72. “The man who was only a silhouette. She.”

— Ian Fleming

73. “Oh, it’s all been such a lark.”

— Ian Fleming

74. “When the odds are hopeless, when all seems to be lost, then is the time to be calm, to make a show of authority – at least of indifference.”

— Ian Fleming

75. “Shaken and not stirred.”

— Ian Fleming

76. “You can get far in North America with laconic grunts. “Huh,” “hun,” and “hi!” in their various modulations, together with “sure,” “guess so,” “that so?” and “nuts!” will meet almost any contingency.”

— Ian Fleming

77. “I was just on the edge of getting married, and I was frenzied at the prospect of this great step in my life after having been a bachelor for so long. And I really wanted to take my mind off of the agony, and so I decided to sit down and write a book.”

— Ian Fleming

78. “Bond mistrusted anyone who tied his tie with a Windsor knot. It showed too much vanity.”

— Ian Fleming

79. “He’s not a bad guy really, except he’s so crooked, you shake hands with him you better count your fingers afterwards.”

— Ian Fleming

80. “Bond reflected that good Americans were fine people and that most of them seemed to come from Texas.”

— Ian Fleming

81. “THERE ARE moments of great luxury in the life of a secret agent. There are assignments on which he is required to act the part of a very rich man; occasions when he takes refuge in good living to efface the memory of danger and the shadow of death; and times when, as was now the case, he is a guest in the territory of an allied Secret Service.”

— Ian Fleming

82. “In the background there thudded always the hidden metronome of the Casino, ticking up its little treasure of one-per-cents with each spin of a wheel and each turn of a card – a pulsing fat-cat with a zero for a heart.”

— Ian Fleming

83. “And of course, Japan, with the highest suicide statistics in the world, a country with an unquenchable thirst for the bizarre, the cruel and the terrible, would provide the perfect last refuge for him.”

— Ian Fleming

84. “People are so damn sensitive about colour around here that you can’t even ask a barman for a jigger of rum. You have to ask for a jegro.”

— Ian Fleming

85. “Prohibition is the trigger of crime.”

— Ian Fleming

86. “Bond remembered the dictum of the pros: ‘It’s never too early to start winning.”

— Ian Fleming

87. “Then he slept, and with the warmth and humour of his eyes extinguished, his features relapsed into a taciturn mask, ironical, brutal, and cold.”

— Ian Fleming

88. “Bond grinned with pleasure. What most warmed him was that M. himself should have rung up Mathis. This was quite unheard of. The very existence of M., let alone his identity, was never admitted. He could imagine the flutter this must have caused in the ultra-security-minded organization in London.”

— Ian Fleming

89. “IT WAS twelve o’clock when Bond left the Splendide and the clock on the ‘mairie’ was stumbling through its midday carillon.”

— Ian Fleming

90. “They paddled easily, in unison, the paddles turning in their hands so that they did not leave the water on the forward stroke. The small waves slapped softly against the bows. Otherwise they made no noise. It was dark. Nobody saw them go. They just left the land and went off across the sea.”

— Ian Fleming

91. “Just as, at least in one religion, accidia is the first of the cardinal sins, so bordom, and particularly the incredible circumstance of waking up bored, was the only vice Bond utterly condemned.”

— Ian Fleming

92. “Bond awoke in his own room at dawn and for a time he lay and stroked his memories.”

— Ian Fleming

93. “Bond surveyed his weapons. They were only his hands and his feet, his Gillette razor and his wristwatch, a heavy Rolex Oyster Perpetual on an expanding bracelet. Used properly, these could be turned into most effective knuckledusters.”

— Ian Fleming

94. “I expect because I think I can handle life better on my own. Most marriages don’t add two people together. They subtract one from the other.”

— Ian Fleming

95. “I do believe I’m tight,’ she said, ’how disgraceful. Please, James, don’t be ashamed of me. I did so want to be gay. And I am gay.”

— Ian Fleming

96. “Surround yourself with human beings, my dear James. They are easier to fight for than principles.′ He laughed. ‘But don’t let me down and become human yourself. We would lose such a wonderful machine.”

— Ian Fleming

97. “He suddenly dropped his bantering tone and looked at Bond sharply and venomously.”

— Ian Fleming

98. “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 of up to the hilt. But it had to be understood and recognized for what it was and not confused with a faulty appreciation of the odds, for, at gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck. And luck in all its moods had to be loved and not feared.”

— Ian Fleming

99. “The thin man had hit him a hard professional cutting blow with the edge of the hand. There was something rather deadly about his accuracy and lack of effort. He was now again lying back, his eyes closed. He was a man to make you afraid, an evil man. Bond hoped he might get a chance of killing him.”

— Ian Fleming

100. “Now in order to tell the difference between good and evil, we have manufactured two images representing the extremes – representing the deepest black and the purest white – and we call them God and the Devil. But in doing so we have cheated a bit. God is a clear image, you can see every hair on His beard. But the Devil. What does he look like?’ Bond looked triumphantly at Mathis. Mathis laughed ironically.”

— Ian Fleming