“He shrugged his shoulders to shift the pain of failure---the pain that is so much greater than the pleasure of success.”

“I would stay away from him and leave him to go his own road where there would be other women, countless other women, who would probably give him as much physical pleasure as he had had with me. I wouldn’t care, or at least I told myself that I wouldn’t care, because none of them would ever own him—own any larger piece of him than I now did.”

“The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success”

“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”

“The game, whatever it was, had to be played out. If the change of rooms had been the opening gambit, so much the better. The game had to begin somewhere.”

“He was a secret agent, and still alive thanks to his exact attention to the detail of his profession.”

“Ian FlemingThe CBC Interview, 1953He doesn’t use Anglo-Saxon four-letter words, “I don’t like seeing them on the page.”When asked why his novels are so popular in light of the dirtiness of the trade (of espionage), Fleming said, “The books have pace and plenty of action. And espionage is not regarded by the majority of the public as a dirty trade. They regard it as a rather sort of ah, ah very romantic affair… Spying has always been regarded as (a) very romantic one-man job, so-to-speak. A one man against a whole police force or an army.”Regarding heroes of his time, Fleming said, “I think that although they may have feet of clay, ah, we probably all have, and all human beings have, there’s no point in dwelling entirely on the feet. There are many other parts of the animal to be examined. And I think people like to read about heroes.”BBC Interview on Desert Island DiscsQuestion: Had the character of James Bond been growing in your mind for a long time?Ian Fleming’s response: “No, I can’t say I had, really. He sort of, ah, developed when I was just on the edge of getting married, after having been a bachelor for so long, and I really wanted to take my mind off the agony. And so I decided to sit down and write a book.”Question: How much long do you think you can keep Bond going?Ian Fleming’s response: “Well, I don’t know. It depends on how much I, how much more I can go on following his adventures.”Question: You don’t feel he’s keeping you from more serious writing?Ian Fleming’s response: “No. I’m not in the Shakespeare stakes. I’ve got no ambitions.”