- I always make it a rule never to look back. Otherwise, I'd ask myself how I could write such piffle and live with myself, day after day.
- [mid-1950s] My James Bond novels are really for a very specialized, limited market. I am not counting the great unwashed public and do not expect them to fancy anything I write.
- I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find, James Bond was much better than something more interesting like "Peregrine Maltravers". Exotic things would happen to and around him but he would be a neutral figure--an anonymous blunt instrument wielded by a government department.
- [interview in The Daily Express, 1962] The target of my books lay somewhere between the solar plexus and the upper thigh.
- Men want a woman whom they can turn on and off like a light switch.
- [on how he wrote "Casino Royale"] Writing about 2,000 words in three hours every morning, "Casino Royale" dutifully produced itself. I wrote nothing and made no corrections until the book was finished. If I had looked back at what I had written the day before, I might have despaired.
- [on James Bond] Apart from the fact that he wears the same clothes that I wear, he and I really have little in common. I do rather envy him his blondes and his efficiency, but I can't say I much like the chap.
- I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.
- [his last words, reportedly to the ambulance attendants] Awfully sorry to trouble you chaps.
- [to house-guest Peter Quennell, reminiscing about his schoolboy experiences] I will not have buggery discussed at Christmas.
- I am not in the Shakespeare stakes.
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