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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by Ian Fleming

Image
Bond didn't defend the practice. He simply maintained that the more effort and ingenuity you put into gambling, the more you took out.
Ian Fleming
Image
A gentleman's choice of timepiece says as much about him as does his Saville Row suit.
Ian Fleming
Image
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.
Ian Fleming
Image
Men want a woman whom they can turn on and off like a light switch.
Ian Fleming
Image
A woman should be an illusion
Ian Fleming
Image
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
Image
It’s just that I’d rather die of drink than of thirst.
Ian Fleming
Image
The World Is Not Enough
Ian Fleming
Image
Like all harsh, cold men, he was easily tipped over into sentiment.
Ian Fleming
Image
The gain to the winner is always less than the loss to the loser.
Ian Fleming
Image
They want us dead,' said Bond calmly. 'So we have to stay alive.
Ian Fleming
Image
History is moving pretty quickly these days, and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts.
Ian Fleming
Image
Our prisons are full of people who think they're Napoleon..or God.
Ian Fleming
Image
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.
Ian Fleming
Image
Never say 'no' to adventures.
Ian Fleming
Image
If I wait for the genius to come, it just doesn't arrive.
Ian Fleming
Image
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
Image
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?
Ian Fleming
Image
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
Image
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.
Ian Fleming