My mental hands were empty, and I felt I must do something as a counterirritant or antibody to my hysterical alarm at getting married at the age of 43.

And don't get hurt,' [Dexter] added. 'There's no one to help you up there. And don't go stirring up a lot of trouble for us. This 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'.

I take a ridiculous pleasure in what I eat and drink. It comes partly from being a bachelor, but mostly from a habit of taking a lot of trouble over details. It's very persnickety and old-maidish really, but then when I'm working I generally have to eat my meals alone and it makes them more interesting when one takes trouble.

Bond reflected that good Americans were fine people and that most of them seemed to come from Texas.

Englishmen are so odd. They are like a nest of Chinese boxes. It takes a very long time to get to the centre of them. When one gets there the result is unrewarding, but the process is instructive and entertaining.

Before a man's forty, girls cost nothing. After that you have to pay money, or tell a story. Of the two, it's the story that hurts most. Anyway I'm not forty yet.

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