Quote

Englishmen are so odd. They are like a nest of Chinese boxes. It takes a very long time to get to the centre of them. When one gets there the result is unrewarding, but the process is instructive and entertaining.

Ian Fleming

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Ian Fleming
Age: 55 †
Born: 1908
Born: December 28
Died: 1964
Died: August 12
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Prosaist
Sailor
Screenwriter
Writer
Mayfair
London
Ian Lancaster Fleming
Takes
Englishmen
Results
Centre
Process
Odd
Long
Entertaining
Time
Boxes
Like
Chinese
Instructive
Result
Nest
Gets
Nests

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A dry martini,' he said. 'One. In a deep champagne goblet.' ... Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?
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As for sex, well, I mean sex is a perfectly respectable subject as far as Shakespeare is concerned. I mean, all history is love and violence.
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A gentleman's choice of timepiece says as much about him as does his Saville Row suit.
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Against the background of this luminous and sparkling stage Bond stood in the sunshine and felt his mission to be incongruous and remote and his dark profession an affront to his fellow actors.
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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.
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The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning.
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If I wait for the genius to come, it just doesn't arrive.
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Everything I write has a precedent in truth.
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Bond didn't defend the practice. He simply maintained that the more effort and ingenuity you put into gambling, the more you took out.
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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.
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I'm getting very sorry for the Devil and his disciples such as the good Le Chiffre. The devil has a rotten time and I always like to be on the side of the underdog. We don't give the poor chap a chance...the Devil had no prophets to write his Ten Commandments and no team of authors to write his biography.
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One of the bibles of my youth was 'Birds of the West Indies,' by James Bond, a well-known ornithologist, and when I was casting about for a name for my protagonist I thought, 'My God, that's the dullest name I've ever heard,' so I appropriated it. Now the dullest name in the world has become an exciting one.
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Like all harsh, cold men, he was easily tipped over into sentiment.
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A woman should be an illusion
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History is moving pretty quickly these days, and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts.
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Bond reflected that good Americans were fine people and that most of them seemed to come from Texas.
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And then one day when you're playing your little game you'll suddenly find yourself pinned down like a butterfly.
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It's no good protecting people or even looking after them past a certain point. One can't grasp more than a piece of anyone. Most of the rest can only be protected by themselves and the remainder by hired specialists and doctors and dentists and professional protectors.
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Unfortunately most ways of making big money take a long time. By the time one has made the money one is too old to enjoy it.
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Luck in all its moods had to be loved and not feared 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.
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