Dick Francis > Quotes

“Some are born weird, some achieve it, others have weirdness thrust upon them.”
― Dick Francis, To the Hilt

“Most people think, when they're young, that they're going to the top of their chosen world, and that the climb up is only a formality. Without that faith, I suppose, they might never start. Somewhere on the way they lift their eyes to the summit and know they aren't going to reach it; and happiness then is looking down and enjoying the view they've got, not envying the one they haven't.”
― Dick Francis, Reflex

“Love's easy to learn. It's like taking a risk. You set your mind on it and refuse to be afraid, and in no time you feel terrifically exhilarated and all your inhibitions fly out of the window.”
― Dick Francis, Dead Cert

“I guessed life was like that. You gained and you lost, and if you saved anything from the ruins, even if only a shred of self-respect, it was enough to take you through the next bit.”
― Dick Francis, Whip Hand

“But one discarded dreams and got dressed, and made what one could of the day.”
― Dick Francis, Whip Hand

“May I deal with honour
May I act with courage
May I achieve humility”
― Dick Francis, Straight

“Logic doesn't stop you feeling. You can behave logically and it can hurt like hell. Or it can comfort you. Or release you. Or all at the same time”
― Dick Francis, The Danger

“But what do you say if you're asked a direct question and you can't tell the truth and you can't tell a lie?'
'You say “how very interesting” and change the subject.”
― Dick Francis, 10 Lb. Penalty

“I'd always found goodness more interesting then evil, though I was aware this wasn't the most general view. To my mind, it took more work and more courage to be good, an opinion continually reinforced by my own shortcomings.”
― Dick Francis, Comeback

“Life has a way of kicking one along like a football, or so I've found. Fate had never dealt me personally a particularly easy time, but that was OK, that was normal. Most people, it seemed to me, took their turn to be football. Most survived. Some didn't.”
― Dick Francis, Straight

“How could people, I wondered for the ten thousandth useless time, how could people who had loved so dearly come to such a wilderness; and yet the change in us was irreversible, and neither of us would even search for a way back. It was impossible. The fire was out. Only a few live coals lurked in the ashes, searing unexpectedly at the incautious touch.”
― Dick Francis, Whip Hand

“The dignity of man was everywhere tissue-paper thin.”
― Dick Francis, Banker

“Look at everything upside down.Take absolutely nothing for granted.”
― Dick Francis, Rat Race

“It's people with obsessions who do the real harm in the world.”
― Dick Francis, 10 Lb. Penalty

“Yet all we had was here and now, and here and now was always where the struggle toward goodness had to be fought. Toward virtue, morality, uprightness, order: call it what one liked. A long ever-recurring battle.”
― Dick Francis, The Edge

“I had set myself an unattainable ideal. Such human skill I could summon wasn’t enough for the job. I felt the suicidal despair of all who longed to do what they couldn’t, what only a few in each century could – whether blessed or cursed in spirit. No achievement was ever finite. There was no absolute summit. No peak of Everest to plant a flag on. Success was someone else’s opinion.”
― Dick Francis

“I hadn’t had a mother since I was two, and from then until seven I had believed God was someone who had run off with her and was living with her somewhere else... (God took your mother, dear, because he needed her more than you do) which had never endeared him to me”
― Dick Francis, Bonecrack

“one should never assume anything”
― Dick Francis, Crossfire

“Never ever make a joke to the police, they have no sense of humour. Never make a political joke, it will always be considered an insult. Always remember that umbrage can be taken by the lift of an eyebrow. Remember that if offence can possibly be taken, it will be.”
― Dick Francis, 10 Lb. Penalty

“But people as a rule believe only what they want to believe, and if you tell them anything else they'll call you a trouble-maker and get rid of you and never give you your job back, even if what you said is proved spot on right by time.”
― Dick Francis, 10 Lb. Penalty

“To be logical you have to dig up and face your own hidden motives and emotions, and of course they're hidden principally because you don't want to face them.
So...um...it's easier to let your basement feelings run the upper storeys, so to speak, and the result is quarrels, love, opinions, anorexia, philanthropy... almost anything you can think of. I just like to know what's going on down there, to pick out why I truly want to do things, that's all. Then I can do them, or not. Whichever.”
― Dick Francis, The Danger

“The bad scorn the good . . .
and the crooked despise the straight."
~Greville”
― Dick Francis, Straight

“I looked into his sandy brown eyes, at one with the hair. At the business- like outward presentation of the man who daily printed sneers, innuendo, distrust and spite and spoke without showing a trace of them. 'Off the record,' I said,'bash his face in'.”
― Dick Francis

“People always kill Caesar. Don't trust anyone.”
― Dick Francis, 10 Lb. Penalty

“Life is like the weather,despite a sunny forecast you can get wet.”
― Dick Francis

“Infinite sadness is not to trust an old friend.”
― Dick Francis, Straight

“She said several times that Malcolm was a fiend who was determined to destroy his children, and that I was the devil incarnate helping him. She hoped we would both rot in hell. (I thought devils and fiends might flourish there, actually.)”
― Dick Francis, Hot Money

“Mrs Palis­sey and I tend­ed to have the same con­ver­sa­tions over and over and slight­ly too of­ten.
”
― Dick Francis, Proof

“In the context of ten thousand years, I thought, what did Filmer and his sins matter? Yet all we had was here and now, and here and now was always where the struggle toward goodness had to be fought. Toward virtue, morality, uprightness, order: call it what one liked. A long, ever-recurring battle.”
― Dick Francis, The Edge

“If ever you get invited into someone's home,' my father said (as he had been invited five or six times that morning), 'you go into the sitting-room and you say, “Oh, what an attractive room!" even if you think it's hideous.”
― Dick Francis, 10 Lb. Penalty