You Only Live Twice Quotes

“You only live twice:
Once when you are born
And once when you look death in the face”
― Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice

“I've found that one must try and teach people that there's no top limit to disaster-that, so long as breath remains in your body, you've got accept the miseries of life. They will often seem infinite, insupportable. They are part of the human condition.”
― Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice

“He had seen how the spirit, the reserves in [Bond], could pull him out of badly damaged conditions that would have broken the normal human being. He knew how a desperate situation would bring out those reserves again, how the will to live would spring up again in a real emergency. He remembered how countless neurotic patients had disappeared for ever from his consulting rooms when the last war had broken out. The big worry had driven out the smaller ones, the greater fear the lesser. He made up his mind. He turned back to M." Give him one more chance.”
― Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice

“Looking up at him from across the room, Bond had to admit that there was something larger than life in the looming, imperious figure, in the hypnotically direct stare of the eyes, in the tall white brow, in the cruel downward twist of the thin lips. The square-cut, heavily draped kimono, designed to give the illusion of bulk to a race of smallish men, made something huge out of the towering figure, and the golden dragon embroidery, so easily to be derided as a childish fantasy, crawled menacingly across the black silk and seemed to spit real fire from over the left breast. Blofeld had paused in his harangue. Waiting for him to continue, Bond took the measure of his enemy. He knew what would be coming – justification. It was always so. When they thought they had got you where they wanted you, when they knew they were decisively on top, before the knock-out, even to an audience on the threshold of extinction, it was pleasant, reassuring to the executioner, to deliver his apologia – purge the sin he was about to commit.”
― Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice

“You only live twice: Once when you are born And once when you look death in the face.”
― Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice

“And of course, Japan, with the highest suicide statistics in the world, a country with an unquenchable thirst for the bizarre, the cruel and the terrible, would provide the perfect last refuge for him.”
― Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice

“I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”
― Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice

“007: What are the CIA going to say about all this? After all, it's bare-faced poaching.
Tanner: They don't own Japan. Anyway, they're not here to know. That's up to this fellow Tanaka. He'll have to fix the machinery for getting it into the Australian Embassy. That's his worry. But the whole thing's on pretty thin ice. The main problem is to make sure he doesn't go straight along to the CIA and tell 'em of your approach. If you get blown, we'll just have to get the Australians to hold the baby. They've don it before when we've been bowled out edging our way into the pacific. We're good friends with their service. First-rate bunch of chaps. And, anyway, the CIA's hands aren't as clean as all that. We've got a whole file of cases where they've crossed wires with us round the world. Often dangerously. We can throw that book at McCone if this business blows up in our faces. But part of your job is to see that it doesn't.
007: Seems to me I'm getting all balled up in high politics. Not my line of country at all.”
― Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice

“The gleaming orange and silver express slid to a stop beside them. Tiger barged his way on board. Bond waited politely for two or three women to precede him. When he sat down beside Tiger, Tiger hissed angrily," First lesson, Bondo-san! Do not make way for women. Push them, trample them down. Women have no priority in this country. You may be polite to very old men, but to no one else. Is that understood? "
"Yes, master," said Bond sarcastically.
"And do not make Western-style jokes while you are my pupil. We are engaged on a serious mission."
"Oh, all right, Tiger," said Bond resignedly. "But damn it all..."
Tiger held up a hand. "And that is another thing. No swearing, please. There are no swearwords in the Japanese language and the usage of bad language does not exist."
"But good heavens, Tiger! No self-respecting man could get through the day without his battery of four-letter words to cope with the roughage of life and let off steam. If you're late for a vital appointment with your superiors, and you find that you've left all your papers at home, surely you say, well, Freddie Uncle Charlie Katie, if I may put it so as not to offend."
"No," said Tiger. "I would say 'Shimata', which means 'I have made a mistake.'"
"Nothing worse?"
"There is nothing worse to say."
"Well, supposing it was your driver's fault that the papers had been forgotten. Wouldn't you curse him backwards and sideways?"
"If I wanted to get myself a new driver, I might conceivably call him 'bakyaro' which means a 'bloody fool', or even 'konchikisho' which means 'you animal'. But these are deadly insults and he would be within his rights to strike me. He would certainly get out of the car and walk away."
"And those are the worst words in the Japanese language! What about your taboos? The Emperor, your ancestors, all these gods? Don't you ever wish them in hell, or worse?"
"No. That would have no meaning."
"Well then, dirty words. Sex words?"
"There are two--'chimbo' which is masculine and 'monko' which is feminine. These are nothing but coarse anatomical descriptions. They have no meaning as swearing words. There are no such things in our language."
"Well I'm...I mean, well I'm astonished. A violent people without a violent language! I must write a learned paper on this. No wonder you have nothing left but to commit suicide when you fail an exam, or cut your girlfriend's head off when she annoys you."
Tiger laughed. "We generally push them under trams or trains."
"Well, for my money, you'd do much better to say 'You-------'," Bond fired off the hackneyed string, "and get it off your chest that way."
"That is enough, Bondo-san," said Tiger patiently. "The subject is now closed. But you will kindly refrain both from using these words or looking them. Be calm, stoical, impassive. Do not show anger. Smile at misfortune. If you sprain your ankle, laugh.”
― Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice

“first knocked all the wind out of Bond,”
― Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice

“007: Be an angle, Penny, and ring down to Mary and tell her she's got to get out of whatever she's doing tonight. I'm taking her out to dinner. Scotts. Tell her we'll have our first roast grouse of the year and pink champagne. Celebration.
Moneypenny: What of?
007: Oh, I dunno. The Queen's birthday or something. Right?”
― Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice