The collection / 58 fragments

The living archive

Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

Surround yourself with human beings, my dear James. They are easier to fight for than principles.

Ian Fleming / quote

02Undated

History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts.

Ian Fleming / quote

03Undated

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 / quote

04Undated

Above all, he liked it that everything was one's own fault. There was only oneself to praise or blame. Luck was a servant and not a master. Luck had to be accepted with a shrug or taken advantage of up to the hilt. But it had to be understood and recognized for what it was and not confused with a faulty appreciation of the odds, for, at gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck. And luck in all its moods had to be loved and not feared

Ian Fleming / quote

05Undated

The difference between a good golf shot and a bad one is the same as the difference between a beautiful and a plain woman --a matter of millimetres.

Ian Fleming / quote

06Undated

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 / quote

07Undated

When the odds are hopeless, when all seems to be lost, then is the time to be calm, to make a show of authority – at least of indifference

Ian Fleming / quote

08Undated

And people with obsessions, reflected Bond, were blind to danger.

Ian Fleming / quote

09Undated

Older women are best, because they always think they may be doing it for the last time.

Ian Fleming / quote

10Undated

As a result of 50 years of emancipation, feminine qualities were dying out or being transferred to the males. Pansies of both sexes were everywhere, not yet completely homosexual, but confused not knowing what they were. The result was a herd of unhappy sexual misfits... the women wanting to dominate and the men to be nannied.

Ian Fleming / quote