Top 100 Jeffrey Archer Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “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

52. “I watched Hugo Barrington when he gave his evidence. The same self-confidence, the same arrogance, the same half-truths spouted convincingly to the jury, just as he’d whispered them to me in the privacy of the bedroom.”

— Jeffrey Archer

53. “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

54. “Well I certainly have learned and I hope I’m moving on and certainly two years of prison was a terrible punishment.”

— Jeffrey Archer

55. “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

56. “The hour of triumph is not a time to belittle your rivals. Rather, it is a time to be magnanimous.”

— Jeffrey Archer

57. “All seemed to be in order. The boy had two legs, two arms, ten fingers, ten toes. Richard.”

— Jeffrey Archer

58. “I think my attitude to human beings has changed since leaving prison.”

— Jeffrey Archer

59. “You see, the problem with being a bully is that on the flipside of that particular coin, you’ll find the imprint of a coward.”

— Jeffrey Archer

60. “Seven pounds, nine shillings and sixpence turned out to be the value they’d put on Arthur’s life. I sat alone at the kitchen table, and I think that was the moment I knew I’d never see my husband again.”

— Jeffrey Archer

61. “You’ll remember Mark Twain’s comment about his father,” said Beth as they stepped off the bus. “’When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he’d learned in seven years.”

— Jeffrey Archer

62. “Wellington wrote in his memoirs,’ said Old Jack, ’that the worst moment of any campaign is waiting for the sun to rise on the morning of battle.”

— Jeffrey Archer

63. “He was, in the words of H. H. Munro, a man whose looks made it possible for women to forgive any other trifling inadequacies.”

— Jeffrey Archer

64. “He had never understood the niceties of life and it was too late to start learning now.”

— Jeffrey Archer

65. “Accept nothing, believe no one, and challenge everything.”

— Jeffrey Archer

66. “At the end of my trial, I was rather hoping the judge would send me to Australia for the rest of my life.”

— Jeffrey Archer

67. “Steve mellon had told him that love was for poor suckers, and Richard had written on his steamed-up shaving mirror that morning, ‘I must be penniless.”

— Jeffrey Archer

68. “And I did wonder – because it’s now three years ago since I left prison – whether there would come a time when I would forget it, or it would be in the past as anything else might be – no, it’s there every day of my life.”

— Jeffrey Archer

69. “I’ll bet you can’t tell me who designed the garden. I’ll give you a clue: it’s later than the house.’ ‘I’ve only ever heard of one landscape gardener,’ said Harry, still staring at the house. ‘Capability Brown.’ ‘That’s exactly why we chose him,’ said Giles, ‘simply so that my friends would have heard of the fellow two hundred years later.’ Harry.”

— Jeffrey Archer

70. “Well I think after leaving prison, and having written three diaries about life in prison, it became a sort of a new challenge to write another novel, to write a new novel.”

— Jeffrey Archer

71. “Sir Alan Redmayne believed in the rule of law. It was, after all, the basis of any democracy. Whenever asked, Sir Alan agreed with Churchill that, as a form of government, democracy had its disadvantages, but, on balance, it remained the best on offer. But given a free hand, he would have opted for a benevolent dictatorship. The problem was that dictators, by their very nature, were not benevolent. It simply didn’t fit their job description.”

— Jeffrey Archer

72. “A work of art is worth what someone will pay for it.”

— Jeffrey Archer

73. “Deakins is in my class but, frankly, he’s in a different class.”

— Jeffrey Archer

74. “The popularity of an individual in life often only manifests itself in death.”

— Jeffrey Archer

75. “It’s just that I was released from prison today.”

— Jeffrey Archer

76. “I have experienced both triumph and disaster, and, to quote Kipling, have treated those two imposters just the same.”

— Jeffrey Archer

77. “I’m vulgar, I’m a populist. But isn’t that what the mayor should be?”

— Jeffrey Archer

78. “But I have discovered with advancing years that few things are entirely black or white, but more often different shades of gray. I can best sum it up, my lord, by saying that it was an honor to have served Sir Nicholas Moncrieff and it has been a privilege to work with Mr. Cartwright. They are both oaks, even if they were planted in different forests. But then, m’lord, we all suffer in our different ways from being prisoners of birth.”

— Jeffrey Archer

79. “To be allowed to pursue a career of his own choosing, and not just be expected to follow in his father’s footsteps.”

— Jeffrey Archer

80. “But I have discovered with advancing years that few things are entirely black or white, but more often different shades of grey... They are both oaks, even if they were planted in different forests. But then, m’lord, we all suffer in our different ways from being prisoners of birth.”

— Jeffrey Archer

81. “How was it possible that he could handle Swiss bankers, West End impresarios, senior partners and seasoned solicitors, but was a quivering wreck in the presence of this man?”

— Jeffrey Archer

82. “She will open the conversation with a subject of her choice, to which you can respond appropriately. It is not considered courteous for you to ask her any questions, and you should address her as ma’am, which rhymes with jam, not harm.”

— Jeffrey Archer

83. “Just remember, New York isn’t an offshoot of Bloomsbury. Forget refinement, understatement and irony. However much it’s against your better nature, you’ll have to learn to sell your wares like an East End barrow boy.”

— Jeffrey Archer

84. “Haven’t seen him since he clocked off last.”

— Jeffrey Archer

85. “Men often fall in love at first sight.”

— Jeffrey Archer

86. “I’ve loved art for more than 30 years.”

— Jeffrey Archer

87. “And the America Firsters would raise an almighty hue and cry.”

— Jeffrey Archer

88. “Tulip’s nose pressed up against a.”

— Jeffrey Archer

89. “When I was deputy chairman I could travel from Glasgow to Edinburgh without leaving Tory land. In a two-week period I covered every constituency in which we had an MP. There were 14. Now we have only one. We appear to have given up.”

— Jeffrey Archer

90. “He was becoming aware that there was no such thing as over-the-top with Lawrence Davenport, as long as you were talking to Lawrence Davenport about Lawrence Davenport.”

— Jeffrey Archer

91. “Naturally, some of the passengers begin to panic. Several of them leap out into the dimly lit tunnel.”

— Jeffrey Archer

92. “During the next few days, Harry learnt.”

— Jeffrey Archer

93. “But I certainly made mistakes, for which I regret, I think most human beings in their lifetime make mistakes, mine ended up in two years prison – two very remarkable years from which I learnt a lot.”

— Jeffrey Archer

94. “The Japanese always arrive bearing a gift,’ whispered Anna, ’but under no circumstances should you open it in their presence.”

— Jeffrey Archer

95. “But he knew that on the day of a general election, every candidate is convinced he is going to win, even the Liberals. Giles.”

— Jeffrey Archer

96. “He recalled Old Jack’s words after he’d scored a century at Lord’s: anyone can be a good winner. The sign of a great man is how you handle defeat.”

— Jeffrey Archer

97. “We all have to be knowledgeable about something, and Cheddar is my specialty.”

— Jeffrey Archer

98. “But Beverly warned, Sasha, civilized as the British are, you shouldn’t assume that just because you’re clever, they will accept you as one of them. There are many who are suspicious of a first-class mind, while others will make a judgment based not on the words you say, but the accent in which they’re pronounced. – Dr. Streator.”

— Jeffrey Archer

99. “Only Sebastian really knew what she was going through. Her demons, as she called them. Jessica never stopped chattering whenever they were on their own, but the moment she became the centre of attention, like a tortoise she slipped back into her shell, hoping no one would notice her.”

— Jeffrey Archer

100. “Nick Croft has.”

— Jeffrey Archer