“Bond liked fast cars and he liked driving them. Most American cars bored him. They lacked personality and the patina of individual craftsmanship that European cars have. They were just ‘vehicles’, similar in shape and in colour, and even in the tone of their horns. Designed to serve for a year and then be turned in in part exchange for the next year’s model. All the fun of driving had been taken out of them with the abolition of a gear-change, with hydraulic-assisted steering and spongy suspension. All effort had been smoothed away and all of that close contact with the machine and the road that extracts skill and nerve from the European driver.”
Ian Fleming
Live and Let Die (Primary source)
Live and Let Die is the second novel in Ian Fleming’s James Bond series, plunging the British spy into a dangerous mission against a Harlem-based crime lord and his supernatural reputation.
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“Surround yourself with human beings, my dear James. They are easier to fight for than principles.”
— Ian Fleming Primary source“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 Primary sourceThis case isn’t ripe yet. Until it is, our policy with Mr Big is “live and let live”.
Bond looked quizzically at Captain Dexter.
“In my job,” he said, “when I come up against a man like this one, I have another motto. It’s ‘live and let die’.”
“Because people are very careful with the secrets of their own business doesn’t mean that they’ll be careful with the secrets of yours.”
— Ian Fleming Primary source“We stated before that men’s ideas change slowly and that a nation’s ideas change even more slowly. It takes shocks—hard shocks—to change a nation’s psychology.”
— John F. Kennedy Primary source“Painting is a companion with whom one may hope to walk a great part of life’s journey.”
— Winston Churchill Primary source“He touched her for the last time and then they turned away from each other and walked off into their different lives.”
— Ian Fleming Primary source“Only law firm out there’s called Smith and Wesson.”
— Ian Fleming Primary source