Jeffrey Archer Quotations

What I have found is that real friends stand by you.

We all make mistakes but one has to move on.

I think my attitude to human beings has changed since leaving prison.

Well I certainly have learned and I hope I'm moving on and certainly two years of prison was a terrible punishment.

I'm passionate again about writing. This is important to me; it's got to be the comeback book.

I feel I have had a very interesting life, but I am rather hoping there is still more to come. I still haven't captained the England cricket team, or sung at Carnegie Hall!

But I certainly made mistakes, for which I regret, I think most human beings in their lifetime make mistakes, mine ended up in two years prison - two very remarkable years from which I learnt a lot.

Actually, Sydney is my second favourite city on earth, I love Sydney, but this is the greatest.

When I was deputy chairman I could travel from Glasgow to Edinburgh without leaving Tory land. In a two-week period I covered every constituency in which we had an MP. There were 14. Now we have only one. We appear to have given up.

Sixty per cent of people entering prison today are illiterate.

At the end of my trial, I was rather hoping the judge would send me to Australia for the rest of my life.

But the thing I felt most strongly about, and put at the end of one of the prison diaries, was education.

Exclusive will not be published in book format.

Very few people deserted me when I went to prison. They stayed loyal.

When a book comes out I wonder if one person will buy it. It's agony. Of course it's stupid, but it's agony.

When I was three, I wanted to be four. When I was four, I wanted to be prime minister.

I spent my first three weeks there on a wing with 21 murderers. I met some very evil people there but also some men who'd had no upbringing, no chance in life.

I think when you've lost an election by 179, there's going to be a period of time after eighteen years in government when you can't do anything right, and people just kick you for the sake of it, will never admit they voted Conservative.

The discipline required for athletics carried through to writing. You call it obsession. I call it discipline. By the way, I see nothing wrong with that.

I was allowed to ring the bell for five minutes until everyone was in assembly. It was the beginning of power.

I learnt a lot about myself, I learnt a lot about other people and the problems they have. If I was lucky enough to live to a hundred, how I will feel about two per cent of my life being that way, I don't know.

And I did wonder - because it's now three years ago since I left prison - whether there would come a time when I would forget it, or it would be in the past as anything else might be - no, it's there every day of my life.

Whenever you analyse anyone who has had any success and they're in the headlines, you will find they are human and make mistakes. I'm certainly that and I've made a lot of mistakes.

I am currently doing about 30 charity auctions a year.

We go on a lot in this country about offences being caused by drugs. The truth is just as many offences are caused by drink. And that should be taken into account.

I've been doing nineteen hours a day on London, nothing else, I mean this has been my whole life, and writing has been put on one side, and if I'm privileged enough to be the Mayor of this city, then I will not write again.

I'm not involved in politics any more and they're quite right.

Well I think after leaving prison, and having written three diaries about life in prison, it became a sort of a new challenge to write another novel, to write a new novel.

The popularity of an individual in life often only manifests itself in death.

I want to be your stranger across a crowded room.

The worst moment of any campaign is waiting for the sun to rise on the morning of the battle

A strong man who has known power all his life may lose respect for that power. But a weak man knows the value of strength.

I find I don't learn a lot while I'm talking

War and Peace maddens me because I didn't write it myself, and worse, I couldn't.

I do greatly admire Australian artists.

No time like the present

There are defining moments in one's life when you learn about yourself, and you deposit that knowledge in the experience account, so you can draw on it at some later date.

I'm not taking any interest in politics. I'm not involved in politics in any way. My life is in writing now.

I've loved art for more than 30 years.

A work of art is worth what someone will pay for it.

I wrote a million words in the first year, and I could never have done that outside of prison.

Birth is life's first lottery ticket.

I'm vulgar, I'm a populist. But isn't that what the mayor should be?

Who Saddam Hussein kills, dies.

It is often spur-of-the-moment decisions, sometimes made by others, that can change our whole lives.

Chatterers are a menace.

Time spent on preparation is seldom wasted.

With torture ,as with making love, foreplay is the all important factor

Are parents always more ambitious for their children than they are for themselves?

we all suffer in our different ways from being prisoners of birth.

While there may not be a book in every one of us, there is so often a damned good short story.

I put £150,000 into the stage production of Grease and have got back £1.5 million so far. It has been a fantastic success.

Never be frightened by those you assume have more talent than you do, because in the end energy will prevail. My formula is: energy plus talent and you are a king; energy and no talent and you are still a prince; talent and no energy and you are a pauper.

If you make a deal with a fool, don't be surprised when they act foolishly.

Making a million legally has always been difficult. Making a million illegally has always been a little easier. Keeping a million when you have made it is perhaps the most difficult of all.

Some people standby you in your darkest hour while others walk away; only a select few march towards you and become even closer friends.

I have discovered with advancing years that few things are entirely black or white, but more often different shades of grey.

It's one of the ironies of mountaineering,' said Young, 'that grown men are happy to spend months preparing for a climb, weeks rehearsing and honing their skills, and at least a day attempting to reach the summit. And then, having achieved their goal, they spend just a few moments enjoying the experience, along with one or two equally certifiable companions who have little in common other than wanting to do it all again, but a little higher.