Top 80 Nelson DeMille Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Fate whispered to the warrior, “You cannot withstand the coming storm.” And the warrior whispered back, “I am the storm.”

— Nelson DeMille

2. “We’re all pilgrims on the same journey but some pilgrims have better road maps.”

— Nelson DeMille

3. “The problem with doing nothing is not knowing when you are finished.”

— Nelson DeMille

4. “Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face.”

— Nelson DeMille

5. “How you handle life depends a lot on how you handle plan B, or if you have a plan B.”

— Nelson DeMille

6. “I had a very strong desire to be successful at something.”

— Nelson DeMille

Featured in: Strong Quotes

7. “Basically, all women are nurturers and healers, and all men are mental patients to varying degrees.”

— Nelson DeMille

8. “Amicitia sine fraude – to friendship without deceit.”

— Nelson DeMille

9. “Panic – a deep abiding, free-floating anxiety, often without any reason or logical basis.”

— Nelson DeMille

10. “This place is so small you have to go outside to change your mind.”

— Nelson DeMille

11. “As with real estate, what matters with bullet holes is location, location, location.”

— Nelson DeMille

12. “It’s a problem, you know, Paul, dealing with stupid people. You project your own intelligence and rationality onto a person who is a complete idiot, and he lets you down.”

— Nelson DeMille

13. “It’s much different today than it was during the Cold War. The CIA is not the subject of many books anymore. But that might change, because of international terrorism and Red China.”

— Nelson DeMille

14. “People who worry about what others think of them would be surprised at how little they did.”

— Nelson DeMille

15. “Everyone looked pensive, which is good cover-up for clueless.”

— Nelson DeMille

16. “Well, no one ever said the truth would make you happy – only free.”

— Nelson DeMille

17. “If everyone howled at every injustice, every act of barbarism, every act of unkindness, then we would be taking the first step towards a real humanity.”

— Nelson DeMille

18. “Well, sonny, in my country, gun control means using both hands.”

— Nelson DeMille

19. “Anyway, I’m getting really intolerant of liars, fools, blowhards, and power freaks.”

— Nelson DeMille

20. “From the unknown, through the unknown, to the unknown. Put your hand into the hand of God. It will be all right.”

— Nelson DeMille

21. “I generally unwind by having dinner with close friends.”

— Nelson DeMille

22. “On the other hand, as every cop knows, lies are like cockroaches – if you see one, there are others.”

— Nelson DeMille

23. “I’ve always been fascinated by the Gold Coast. The homes themselves are spectacular, unlike anything you’ll see other than in Newport, Bar Harbor or Palm Beach. It’s a very special area that, because of local demographics, is not going to survive much longer.”

— Nelson DeMille

24. “The journey home is never a direct route; it is, in fact, always circuitous, and somewhere along the way, we discover that the journey is more significant than the destination and that the people we meet along the way will be the traveling companions of our memories forever.”

— Nelson DeMille

25. “I only drink a little, but when I do, I become a different person, and that person drinks a lot.”

— Nelson DeMille

26. “I spent most of my money on booze and broads and I wasted the rest of it.”

— Nelson DeMille

27. “I’m always ready for anything, but prepared for nothing.”

— Nelson DeMille

28. “The meaning of life has not much to do with good and evil, right and wrong, duty, honor, country, or any of that. It has to do with cutting the right deal.”

— Nelson DeMille

29. “They brought with them seventeen American POWs who were secretly imprisoned in Villa Marista for advanced experiments with drugs.” It was hard to imagine being taken prisoner in Vietnam, tortured there, then being shipped to Cuba for more of the same.”

— Nelson DeMille

30. “I try to use short sentences, short paragraphs and short chapters to keep the reader’s interest.”

— Nelson DeMille

31. “Stephen King once told me he liked my writing. And that was great.”

— Nelson DeMille

32. “I do write my manuscripts by hand, in pencil on legal pads. Then they are typed on a word processor by my typist.”

— Nelson DeMille

33. “I sometimes use some personality traits to fashion part of a character. Most of my characters are composites of either people I know or people in the public eye.”

— Nelson DeMille

34. “It’s really scary when you have a moment of temporary sanity.”

— Nelson DeMille

35. “A boat is sort of a litmus test for relationships, the close quarters and solitude compelling people into either a warm bond or into mutiny and murder. As.”

— Nelson DeMille

36. “She asked me, “Was your divorce nasty?” “Not at all. The marriage was nasty.”

— Nelson DeMille

37. “I was trained in Army Intelligence, but spent most of my army career in the infantry. But like many people of my generation, I was very much caught up in the Cold War, and books and movies about espionage.”

— Nelson DeMille

38. “I don’t like mysteries, which is why I want to solve them. It bothers me that there are things I don’t know.”

— Nelson DeMille

39. “I like the process of pencil and paper as opposed to a machine. I think the writing is better when it’s done in handwriting.”

— Nelson DeMille

40. “Writing doesn’t leave much time for hobbies, unless you consider that I began writing as a hobby and have made the hobby into a profession.”

— Nelson DeMille

41. “Where have all the young men gone? Gone to soldiers, every one.”

— Nelson DeMille

42. “There is no terra incognito left.”

— Nelson DeMille

43. “Even the most radical Islamic terrorist would not want to see the revered holy city of Medina go up. It would be like losing the Vatican in Rome.”

— Nelson DeMille

44. “The way to a woman’s heart is through her funny bone. Women like men who make them laugh. I think.”

— Nelson DeMille

45. “You have to go out of your way as a suspense novelist to find situations where the protagonists are somewhat helpless and in real danger.”

— Nelson DeMille

46. “A lot of our perception of history is influenced by inaccurate movies.”

— Nelson DeMille

47. “Most of my books are about contemporary subjects, and the world changes so fast that I’m lucky when events haven’t overtaken the book I’m writing at the moment.”

— Nelson DeMille

48. “Mrs. Corey still uses her maiden name for business, or when she wants to pretend she doesn’t know me.”

— Nelson DeMille

49. “In America if you’re poor, you’re worse than a criminal. You’re nobody.”

— Nelson DeMille

50. “Without women, there would be perpetual war and chaos. With them, there was only chaos.”

— Nelson DeMille