Top 100 Jeffrey Archer Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “No time like the present.”

— Jeffrey Archer

2. “Accept nothing, Believe no one, Challenge everything. It’s the only law I live by.”

— Jeffrey Archer

3. “Some people standby you in your darkest hour while others walk away; only a select few march towards you and become even closer friends.”

— Jeffrey Archer

4. “A strong man who has known power all his life may lose respect for that power. But a weak man knows the value of strength.”

— Jeffrey Archer

Featured in: Strong Quotes

5. “Birth is life’s first lottery ticket.”

— Jeffrey Archer

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

6. “While there may not be a book in every one of us, there is so often a damned good short story.”

— Jeffrey Archer

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

7. “Never be frightened by those you assume have more talent than you do, because in the end energy will prevail. My formula is: energy plus talent and you are a king; energy and no talent and you are still a prince; talent and no energy and you are a pauper.”

— Jeffrey Archer

8. “I want to be your stranger across a crowded room.”

— Jeffrey Archer

9. “What I have found is that real friends stand by you.”

— Jeffrey Archer

10. “Time spent on preparation is seldom wasted.”

— Jeffrey Archer

11. “When a book comes out I wonder if one person will buy it. It’s agony. Of course it’s stupid, but it’s agony.”

— Jeffrey Archer

12. “I have discovered with advancing years that few things are entirely black or white, but more often different shades of grey.”

— Jeffrey Archer

13. “I feel I have had a very interesting life, but I am rather hoping there is still more to come. I still haven’t captained the England cricket team, or sung at Carnegie Hall!”

— Jeffrey Archer

14. “It is often spur-of-the-moment decisions, sometimes made by others, that can change our whole lives.”

— Jeffrey Archer

15. “If you make a deal with a fool, don’t be surprised when they act foolishly.”

— Jeffrey Archer

16. “There are defining moments in one’s life when you learn about yourself, and you deposit that knowledge in the experience account, so you can draw on it at some later date.”

— Jeffrey Archer

17. “For the Indians, cricket is not a game, it’s a religion.”

— Jeffrey Archer

18. “The worst moment of any campaign is waiting for the sun to rise on the morning of the battle.”

— Jeffrey Archer

19. “Then one morning she woke to find him sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at her. She blinked at him. ‘Is something wrong, darling?’ ‘No. I’m just looking at my greatest asset, and making sure I never take it for granted.”

— Jeffrey Archer

20. “If you’ve struck gold, why go in search of brass?”

— Jeffrey Archer

21. “I find I don’t learn a lot while I’m talking.”

— Jeffrey Archer

22. “Who Saddam Hussein kills, dies.”

— Jeffrey Archer

23. “Clifton, in life you get what you deserve, no more and certainly no less.”

— Jeffrey Archer

24. “Stevie, don’t get cross, get even.”

— Jeffrey Archer

25. “I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.”

— Jeffrey Archer

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

26. “We all make mistakes but one has to move on.”

— Jeffrey Archer

27. “But the thing I felt most strongly about, and put at the end of one of the prison diaries, was education.”

— Jeffrey Archer

28. “I learnt a lot about myself, I learnt a lot about other people and the problems they have. If I was lucky enough to live to a hundred, how I will feel about two per cent of my life being that way, I don’t know.”

— Jeffrey Archer

29. “I’m passionate again about writing. This is important to me; it’s got to be the comeback book.”

— Jeffrey Archer

30. “When a woman shows some leadership,’ said Maisie, ’she’s immediately branded as bossy, but when a man does exactly the same thing, he’s described as decisive, and a born leader.”

— Jeffrey Archer

31. “I never advise friends to put money in anything,. said Danny. ‘It’s a no-win situation – if they make a profit they forget that it was you who recommended it, and if they make a loss they never stop reminding you. My only advise would be not to gamble what you can’t afford, and never to risk an amount that might cause you to lose a night’s sleep.”

— Jeffrey Archer

32. “I think when you’ve lost an election by 179, there’s going to be a period of time after eighteen years in government when you can’t do anything right, and people just kick you for the sake of it, will never admit they voted Conservative.”

— Jeffrey Archer

33. “Whenever you analyse anyone who has had any success and they’re in the headlines, you will find they are human and make mistakes. I’m certainly that and I’ve made a lot of mistakes.”

— Jeffrey Archer

34. “I’m not taking any interest in politics. I’m not involved in politics in any way. My life is in writing now.”

— Jeffrey Archer

35. “War and Peace maddens me because I didn’t write it myself, and worse, I couldn’t.”

— Jeffrey Archer

36. “When I was three, I wanted to be four. When I was four, I wanted to be prime minister.”

— Jeffrey Archer

37. “I was allowed to ring the bell for five minutes until everyone was in assembly. It was the beginning of power.”

— Jeffrey Archer

38. “Never seek the wind in the field – it is useless to try and find what is gone.” Your.”

— Jeffrey Archer

39. “Proust said, we all end up doing the thing we’re second best at.”

— Jeffrey Archer

40. “Making a million legally has always been difficult. Making a million illegally has always been a little easier. Keeping a million when you have made it is perhaps the most difficult of all.”

— Jeffrey Archer

41. “Challenge every writ, and let it not be said of you, I walked a path but never left an imprint.”

— Jeffrey Archer

42. “A police uniform, he was warned by the commander on his first day on parade, could change a person’s personality, and not always for the better.”

— Jeffrey Archer

43. “If you have to pay a bill, always make it look as if the amount is of no consequence.”

— Jeffrey Archer

44. “Women are naturally superior to men, and Mrs Consuela Rosenheim was no exception.”

— Jeffrey Archer

45. “Are parents always more ambitious for their children than they are for themselves?”

— Jeffrey Archer

46. “There were two good reasons why Kelley preferred to thumb a ride back to Stanford rather than take a bus or train. Twelve round trips a year meant she could save over a hundred dollars, which her father could ill afford after being laid off by the water company. In any case he and Ma had already made quite enough sacrifices to.”

— Jeffrey Archer

47. “Sixty per cent of people entering prison today are illiterate.”

— Jeffrey Archer

48. “In the end, it all comes down to how you cope with the unforeseen.”

— Jeffrey Archer

49. “The discipline required for athletics carried through to writing. You call it obsession. I call it discipline. By the way, I see nothing wrong with that.”

— Jeffrey Archer

50. “Some clever children don’t discover how bright they are until after they’ve left school,’ continued Mr Holcombe, ’and then spend the rest of their lives regretting the wasted years.”

— Jeffrey Archer