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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| dc92165 | During the next two days James Bond was permanently in this state without regaining consciousness. He watched the procession of his dreams go by without any effort to disturb their sequence, although many of them were terrifying and all were painful. He knew that he was in a bed and that he was lying on his back and could not move and in one of his twilight moments he thought there were people round him, but he made no effort to open his ey.. | Ian Fleming | ||
| ff843c3 | Tears of forlornness and self-pity welled out of his eyes. | Ian Fleming | ||
| d1ba1e3 | Sometimes it seemed to him that the house had a bad wild life of its own; the impression of its evil lingered, in its name, in its atmosphere... | Rumer Godden | ||
| 864201a | And what an honour to have been chosen. How silly to have been so frightened! Naturally the great leaders of the State would not allow harm to come to an innocent citizen who worked hard and had no black marks on her zapiska. Suddenly she felt immensely grateful to the father-figure that was the State, and proud that she would now have a chance to repay some of her debt. Even the Klebb woman wasn't really so bad after all. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 44b7584 | Surround yourself with human beings, my dear James. They are easier to fight for than principles.' He laughed. 'But don't let me down and become human yourself. We would lose such a wonderful machine.' With a wave of the hand he shut the door. 'Hey,' shouted Bond. But the footsteps went quickly off down the passage. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 2ad3c0c | particular line of business, peace had reigned for nearly a year. And peace was killing him. | Ian Fleming | ||
| c970a59 | She looked at him and saw that his nostrils were slightly flared. In other respects he seemed completely at ease, acknowledging cheerfully the greetings of the Casino functionaries. | Ian Fleming | ||
| f244771 | Where am I?' he asked and was surprised that his voice sounded firm and clear. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 298f9b8 | Bond closed his eyes and mentally explored his body. The worst pain was in his wrists and ankles and in his right hand where the Russian had cut him. In the centre of the body there was no feeling. He assumed that he had been given a local anaesthetic. The rest of his body ached dully as if he had been beaten all over. He could feel the pressure of bandages everywhere and his unshaven neck and chin prickled against the sheets. From the feel.. | Ian Fleming | ||
| cffb0fe | When he spoke he was forthright. 'You have a lot of questions to ask, my dear Mr Bond,' he said in excellent English, 'and I can tell you most of the answers. I do not want you to waste your strength, so I will give you the salient facts and then you may have a few minutes with Monsieur Mathis who wishes to obtain one or two details from you. It is really too early for this talk, but I wish to set your mind at rest so that we can proceed wi.. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 560bbe6 | Bond grinned with pleasure. What most warmed him was that M. himself should have rung up Mathis. This was quite unheard of. The very existence of M., let alone his identity, was never admitted. He could imagine the flutter this must have caused in the ultra-security-minded organization in London. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 7d29ad0 | Head of S., thought Bond. They're certainly giving me the red carpet treatment. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 833835d | Mathis moved his chair close to hers and said softly: 'That is a very good friend of mine. I am glad you have met each other. I can already feel the ice-floes on the two rivers breaking up.' He smiled. 'I don't think Bond has ever been melted. It will be a new experience for him. And for you.' She did not answer him directly. 'He is very good-looking. He reminds me rather of Hoagy Carmichael, but there is something cold and ruthless in his .. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 27c2874 | She answered perfunctorily. She said that, of course, they had picked out the two gunmen, but had thought nothing of it when the man with the stick had gone to stand behind Bond's chair. They could not believe that anything would be attempted in the Casino itself. Directly Bond and Leiter had left to walk over to the hotel, she had telephoned Paris and told M.'s representative of the result of the game. She had had to speak guardedly and th.. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 7a1d16f | There was a scream of tortured rubber as the tyres caught the boulevard in a harsh left-handed turn, the deafening echo of a Citroen's exhaust in second gear, a crash into top, then a swiftly diminishing crackle as the car hared off between the shops on the main street towards the coast-road. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 2d100e3 | By the time Bond had taken in these details, he had come to within fifty yards of the two men. He was reflecting on the ranges of various types of weapon and the possibilities of cover when an extraordinary and terrible scene was enacted. Red-man seemed to give a short nod to Blue-man. With a quick movement Blue-man unslung his blue camera case. Blue-man, and Bond could not see exactly as the trunk of a plane-tree beside him just then inter.. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 5b28d78 | Stupefied, but unharmed, he allowed Mathis to lead him off towards the Splendide from which guests and servants were pouring in chattering fright. As the distant clang of bells heralded the arrival of ambulances and fire-engines, they managed to push through the throng and up the short stairs and along the corridor to Bond's room. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 1d7bd55 | Mathis turned off the radio and waved an affectionate farewell. The door slammed and silence settled on the room. Bond sat for a while by the window and enjoyed being alive. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 7ca05ad | However that may be, it is clear that he could have found many investments more savoury than prostitution, if he had not been tempted by the by-product of unlimited women for his personal use. Fate rebuked him with terrifying swiftness. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 4f2f30c | Madame Versoix had been interrupted in the middle of preparing dinner. She wore an apron and held a wooden spoon in one hand. She was younger than her husband, chubby and handsome and warm-eyed. Instinctively Bond guessed that they had no children and that they gave their thwarted affection to their friends and some regular customers, and probably to some pets. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 9a145a2 | He awoke in the evening completely refreshed. After a cold shower, Bond walked over to the Casino. Since the night before he had lost the mood of the tables. He needed to re-establish that focus which is half mathematical and half intuitive and which, with a slow pulse and a sanguine temperament, Bond knew to be the essential equipment of any gambler who was set on winning. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 50f2e2d | It's wonderful,' said Bond, deciding to relieve her mind, though irritated with her obvious guilt over this childish mystery. 'You must go in and we'll have breakfast on the terrace. I'm ravenous. I'm sorry I made you jump. I was just startled to see anyone about at this hour of the morning. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 31ed714 | Be that as it may, it is here that Le Chiffre will, we are confident, endeavour on or after 15 June to make a profit at baccarat of fifty million francs on a working capital of twenty-five million. (And, incidentally, save his life.) | Ian Fleming | ||
| 6089cfa | If the decision is unfavourable, the only alternative would be to place our information and our recommendations in the hands of the Deuxieme Bureau or of our American colleagues of the Combined Intelligence Agency in Washington. Both of these organizations would doubtless be delighted to take over the scheme. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 234fda5 | It reads better than it lives. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 9855874 | She kept on patching up the edifice of her deceit until Bond wanted to spank her and tell her to relax and tell the truth. Instead he just gave her a reassuring pat on the back outside her room and told her to hurry up and have her bathe. Then he went on to his room. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 4c1d4df | During interrogation he committed suicide by swallowing a coat-button of compressed potassium cyanide. | Ian Fleming | ||
| eba1c88 | The cultured cop! I thought they were peculiar to detective novels. | P.D. James | ||
| 2853de4 | Stay there,' said Mathis. He kicked back his chair and hurtled through the empty window-frame on to the pavement. 6 ....... TWO MEN IN STRAW HATS WHEN BOND left the bar he walked purposefully along the pavement flanking the tree-lined boulevard towards his hotel a few hundred yards away. He was hungry. The day was still beautiful, but by now the sun was very hot and the plane-trees, spaced about twenty feet apart on the grass verge between .. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 955aee5 | LE CHIFFRE looked incuriously at him, the whites of his eyes, which showed all round the irises, lending something impassive and doll-like to his gaze. He slowly removed one thick hand from the table and slipped it into the pocket of his dinner-jacket. The hand came out holding a small metal cylinder with a cap which Le Chiffre unscrewed. He inserted the nozzle of the cylinder, with an obscene deliberation, twice into each black nostril in .. | Ian Fleming | ||
| c4502b8 | The one more or less behind Le Chiffre's right arm was tall and funereal in his dinner-jacket. His face was wooden and grey, but his eyes flickered and gleamed like a conjurer's. His whole long body was restless and his hands shifted often on the brass rail. Bond guessed that he would kill without interest or concern for what he killed and that he would prefer strangling. He had something of Lennie in Of Mice and Men, but his inhumanity wou.. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 1207cdc | He wore a heavy black moustache and the backs of his hands on the rail were matted with black hair. Bond guessed that hair covered most of his squat body. Naked, Bond supposed, he would be an obscene object. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 48a2c94 | Bond's mind was clear again. By a miracle he had survived a devastating wound. He could feel his armpits still wet with the fear of it. But the success of his gambit with the chair had wiped out all memories of the dreadful valley of defeat through which he had just passed. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 44cecee | The two cards slithered towards him across the green sea. Like an octopus under a rock, Le Chiffre watched him from the other side of the table. Bond reached out a steady right hand and drew the cards towards him. Would it be the lift of the heart which a nine brings, or an eight brings? He fanned the two cards under the curtain of his hand. The muscles of his jaw rippled as he clenched his teeth. His whole body stiffened in a reflex of sel.. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 462a803 | Bravo,' said Mathis. 'I'm proud of you. You ought to be tortured every day. I really must remember to do something evil this evening. I must start at once. I have a few marks in my favour - only small ones, alas,' he added ruefully - 'but I shall work fast now that I have seen the light. What a splendid time I'm going to have. Now, let's see, where shall I start, murder, arson, rape? But no, these are peccadilloes. I must really consult the.. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 5f4aca0 | There's a Good Book about goodness and how to be good and so forth, but there's no Evil Book about evil and how to be bad. The Devil has no prophets to write his Ten Commandments and no team of authors to write his biography. His case has gone completely by default. We know nothing about him but a lot of fairy stories from our parents and schoolmasters. He has no book from which we can learn the nature of evil in all its forms, with parable.. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 9889d67 | Bond found this irksome. He disliked being cosseted. It gave him claustrophobia. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 9483de9 | Bond grunted. 'God knows when I'll be able to bathe,' he said. 'The doctor's talking through his hat. And when I can bathe it would probably be better for me to bathe alone for a bit. I don't want to frighten anybody. Apart from anything else,' he glanced pointedly down the bed, 'my body's a mass of scars and bruises. But you enjoy yourself. There's no reason why you shouldn't enjoy yourself.' Vesper was stung by the bitterness and injustic.. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 8f8e4ce | We have been feeling for some time that Le Chiffre is getting into deep water. In nearly all respects he is an admirable agent of the U.S.S.R., but his gross physical habits and predilections are an Achilles heel of which we have been able to take advantage from time to time and one of his mistresses is a Eurasian (No. 1860) controlled by Station F., who has recently been able to obtain insight into his private affairs. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 51a565c | Breakfast was Bond's favourite meal of the day. When he was stationed in London it was always the same. It consisted of very strong coffee, from De Bry in New Oxford Street, brewed in an American Chemex, of which he drank two large cups, black and without sugar. The single egg, in the dark blue egg-cup with a gold ring round the top, was boiled for three and a third minutes. It was a very fresh, speckled brown egg from French Marans hens ow.. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 33f647a | Each day the atmosphere became more hateful. It seemed fantastic to Bond that human relationships could collapse into dust overnight and he searched his mind again and again for a reason. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 05653da | The man seemed to realize that he was being watched. He looked up and gazed incuriously at them for a moment. Then he reached for a brief-case on the chair beside him, extracted a newspaper and started to read it, his elbows propped up on the table. | Ian Fleming | ||
| ba6c49b | He's not a bad guy really, except he's so crooked, you shake hands with him you better count your fingers afterwards. | Ian Fleming | ||
| 9f2aded | Bond loathed and despised tea, that flat, soft, time-wasting opium of the masses, | Ian Fleming |