Eric Ambler Quotes

• Never tell a lie when you can bullshit your way through it

  Eric Ambler

  Lying, Bullshit, Way

  Eric Ambler (2012). “This Gun for Hire”, p.21, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  61 Copy quote

• International business may conduct its operations with scraps of paper, but the ink it uses is human blood.

  Eric Ambler

  Blood, Ink, Use

  Eric Ambler (2001). “A Coffin for Dimitrios”, Vintage

  18 Copy quote

• The important thing to know about an assassination or an attempted assassination is not who fired the shot, but who paid for the bullet.

  Eric Ambler

  Important, Bullets, Shots

  A Coffin for Dimitrios (1939).

  20 Copy quote

• In a dying civilization, political prestige is the reward not of the shrewdest diagnostician, but of the man with the best bedside manner.

  Eric Ambler

  Men, Civilization, Political

  Eric Ambler (2011). “A Coffin for Dimitrios”, p.77, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  14 Copy quote

• Reality is always so obstructive.

  Eric Ambler

  Reality

  Eric Ambler (2008). “Epitaph for a Spy”, p.77, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  9 Copy quote

• Good' did not triumph. 'Evil' did not triumph. The two resolved, destroyed each other and created new 'evils', new 'goods' which slew each other in their turn.

  Eric Ambler

  Two, Evil, Triumph

  Eric Ambler (2008). “Epitaph for a Spy”, p.110, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

  7 Copy quote

• For the skeptic there remains only one consolation: if there should be such a thing as superhuman law it is administered with subhuman inefficiency.

  Eric Ambler

  Science, Law, Internet

  Eric Ambler (2001). “A Coffin for Dimitrios”, Vintage

  20 Copy quote

• A person who searched rooms, brandished pistols, dangled promises of half a million franc fees for nameless services and then wrote instructions to Polish spies might reasonably be regarded with suspicion. But suspicion of what?

  Eric Ambler

  Promise, Spy, Half

  Eric Ambler (2009). “The mask of Dimitrios”, Penguin Classics

  6 Copy quote

• Yet, when these facts are seen side by side with other facts in the case, it is difficult not to become lost in superstitious awe. Their very absurdity seems to prohibit the use of the words 'chance' and 'coincidence.' For the sceptic there remains only one consolation: if there should be such a thing as superhuman Law, it is administered with sub-human inefficiency.

  Eric Ambler

  Law, Use, Facts

  Eric Ambler (1992). “A Coffin for Dimitrios/Judgement on Deltchev/Passage of Arms: Three Complete Novels in One Volume”, Galahad Books

  9 Copy quote

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