Dick Francis Quotes

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

“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

“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

“But one discarded dreams and got dressed, and made what one could of the day.”

— Dick Francis

“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

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

“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

May I deal with honour
May I act with courage
May I achieve humility

— Dick Francis

“The dignity of man was everywhere tissue-paper thin.”

— Dick Francis

“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

“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

One should never assume anything

— Dick Francis

“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

“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

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

“It's people with obsessions who do the real harm in the world.”

— Dick Francis

“Look at everything upside down.Take absolutely nothing for granted.”

— Dick Francis

“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

“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

He gave me a last dark look, not admitting defeat,not giving an inch .I watched him with unexpected regret. Watched him until the consciousness went out of his eyes and they were simply open but seeing nothing.

— Dick Francis

People always kill Caesar. Don't trust anyone.

— Dick Francis

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

“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

“Silly,' he said with mock serenity, 'isn't a word you should ever apply to people. They may be totally stupid, in fact, but if you call them silly you've lost their vote.”

— Dick Francis

“She said several times that Malcollm 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

“Crime to many is not crime but simply a way of life. If laws are inconvenient, ignore them, they don't apply to you.”

— Dick Francis

“Historically, more people have died of religion than cancer.”

— Dick Francis

“I wondered to what extent people remained the same as they'd been when very young; if one peeled back the layers of living one would come to the know child.”

— Dick Francis

“I waved back and went in, and began to sort my way through ancient building plans that had been rolled up so long that straightening them out was like six bouts with an octopus.”

— Dick Francis

“Chick forced himself to turn his head away, to walk in view of that window, to take the ten exposed steps down to the chestnut's stall.”

— Dick Francis

“I gazed at him. He was old enough to know that few things were fair. Most five-year-olds had already discovered it.”

— Dick Francis

Gawd, he thought furiously, he hadn't expected it to be like this. Just a lousy walk down the yard to give a carrot to the gangly chestnut. Guilt and fear and treachery. They bypassed his sneering mind and erupted through his nerves instead.

— Dick Francis

“Ones. I could see that I would be inevitably eased out, and not by doubt but by concern.”

— Dick Francis

“They were carried out. He was a tyrant, not so much in the quality of the work he demanded, as in the quantity. There were some thirty horses in the yard. The head lad cared”

— Dick Francis

“I smiled into the clever eyes. "Find out for me," I said, "whether Oliver”

— Dick Francis

“The house was dark. Upstairs, behind the black open window with the pale curtain flapping in the spartan air, slept Arthur Morrison, trainer of the forty-three racehorses in the stables below. Morrison habitually slept lightly. His ears were sharper than half a dozen guard dogs', his stable-hands said.”

— Dick Francis

“Newspapers, I said. I unrolled the Quindle Diary so”

— Dick Francis

“I stood on the outside of disaster, looking in.”

— Dick Francis

“A jump jockey has to throw his heart over the fence - and then go over and catch it.”

— Dick Francis

THE KNOWN CHILD I wondered to what extent people remained the same as they'd been when very young; if one peeled back the layers of living one would come to the known child.

— Dick Francis

“Emotion is a rotten base for politics.”

— Dick Francis

Good manners are a sign of strength.

— Dick Francis

“Let an idea swim to the surface like a fish in a pool ... let the mind drift to the vision.”

— Dick Francis

“Physics is the science of all the tremendously powerful invisibilities - of magnetism, electricity, gravity, light, sound, cosmic rays. Physics is the science of the mysteries of the universe. How could anyone think it dull?”

— Dick Francis

Everyone journeys through character as well as through time. The person one becomes depends on the person one has been.

— Dick Francis

“Writing a novel proved to be the hardest, most self-analyzing task I had ever attempted, far worse than an autobiography: and its rewards were greater than I expected.”

— Dick Francis