“He was about six feet tall, slim and fit-looking. The eyes in the lean, slightly tanned face were a very clear gray-blue and as they observed the men they were cold and watchful. The narrowed watchful eyes gave his good looks the dangerous, almost cruel quality that had frightened me when I had first set eyes on him.”
Ian Fleming
Vivienne Michel’s description of James Bond in the novel.
The Spy Who Loved Me (Primary source)
The Spy Who Loved Me is the tenth novel in Ian Fleming’s James Bond series, distinguished by its unconventional narrative structure and intimate, first-person perspective.
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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“But genius always looks forward. The eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead. Man hopes. Genius creates. To create—to create—is the proof of a divine presence.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“Good criticism is very rare, and always precious.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“Like all harsh, cold men, he was easily tipped over into sentiment.”
— Ian Fleming Primary source“It was the mistakes one made at the beginning of a case that were the worst. They were the irretrievable ones, the ones that got you off on the wrong foot, that gave the enemy the first game.”
— Ian Fleming Primary source