Quotes from The Day of the Jackal

Frederick Forsyth ·  384 pages

Rating: (94.3K votes)


“Yessir. A crutch, like one-legged men always have.”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Day of the Jackal


“Moonlight turns even the most civilised man into a primitive.”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Day of the Jackal


“El claro de luna convierte al hombre más civilizado en un primitivo”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Day of the Jackal


“The Jackal was perfectly aware that in 1963 General de Gaulle was not only the President of France; he was also the most closely and skilfully guarded figure in the Western world. To assassinate him, as was later proved, was considerably more difficult than to kill President John F. Kennedy of the United States. Although the English killer did not know it, French security experts who had through American courtesy been given an opportunity to study the precautions taken to guard the life of President Kennedy had returned somewhat disdainful of those precautions as exercised by the American Secret Service. The French experts rejection of the American methods was later justified when in November 1963 John Kennedy was killed in Dallas by a half-crazed and security-slack amateur while Charles de Gaulle lived on, to retire in peace and eventually to die in his own home.”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Day of the Jackal


“The following day, July 18, there was a small paragraph at the bottom of an inside page of Le Figaro. It announced that in Paris the Deputy Chief of the Brigade Criminelle of the Police Judiciaire, Commissaire Hippolyte Dupuy, had suffered a severe stroke in his office at the Quai des Orfevres and had died on his way to hospital. A successor had been named. He was Commissaire Claude Lebel, Chief of the Homicide Division, and in view of the pressure of work on all the departments of the Brigade during the summer months, he would take up his new duties forthwith. The Jackal, who read every French newspaper available in London each day, read the paragraph after his eye had been caught by the word 'Criminelle' in the headline, but thought nothing of it.”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Day of the Jackal



“Along the wide straight road he pushed the car well over eighty miles an hour and kept the tachometre needle flickering just below the start of the red band.”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Day of the Jackal


“in police work ninety-nine percent of the effort is routine, unspectacular enquiry, checking and double-checking, laboriously building up a web of parts until the parts become a whole, the whole becomes a net, and the net finally encloses the criminal with a case that will not just make headlines but stand up in court. He”
― Frederick Forsyth, quote from The Day of the Jackal


About the author

Frederick Forsyth
Born place: in Ashford, Kent, England, The United Kingdom
Born date August 25, 1938
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Modern civilization has made woman a little wiser, but it has increased her suffering because of man's covetousness. The woman of yesterday was a happy wife, but the woman of today is a miserable mistress. In the past she walked blindly in the light, but now she walks open-eyed in the dark. She was beautiful in her ignorance, virtuous in her simplicity, and strong in her weakness. Today she has become ugly in her ingenuity, superficial and heartless in her knowledge. Will the day ever come when beauty and knowledge, ingenuity and virtue, and weakness of body and strength of spirit will be united in a woman?”
― Kahlil Gibran, quote from The Broken Wings


“They would think she was savoring the taste (blueberries, cinnamon, cream-excellent), but she was actually savoring the whole morning, trying to catch it, pin it down, keep it safe before all those precious moments became yet another memory.”
― Liane Moriarty, quote from What Alice Forgot


“silence. Finally, he said, “So you and”
― Leila Meacham, quote from Roses


“There were some that were of so rare a beauty that my pleasure on catching sight of them was enhanced by surprise. By what privilege, on one morning rather than another, did the window on being uncurtained disclose to my wondering eyes the nymph Glauconome, whose lazy beauty, gently breathing, had the transparence of a vaporous emerald beneath whose surface I could see teeming the ponderable elements that coloured it? She made the sun join in her play, with a smile rendered languorous by an invisible haze which was nought but a space kept vacant about her translucent surface, which, thus curtailed, became more appealing, like those goddesses whom the sculptor carves in relief upon a block of marble, the rest of which he leaves unchiselled. So, in her matchless colour, she invited us out over those rough terrestrial roads, from which, seated beside Mme. de Villeparisis in her barouche, we should see, all day long and without ever reaching it, the coolness of her gentle palpitation.”
― Marcel Proust, quote from In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower


“There have been times, lately, when I dearly wished that I could change the past. Well, I can’t, but I can change the present, so that when it becomes the past it will turn out to be a past worth having.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from I Shall Wear Midnight


Interesting books

Complete Works
(7.7K)
Complete Works
by Arthur Rimbaud
172 Hours on the Moon
(9.2K)
172 Hours on the Moo...
by Johan Harstad
Empress Orchid
(19.9K)
Empress Orchid
by Anchee Min
Mockingbird
(25.3K)
Mockingbird
by Kathryn Erskine
Love the One You're With
(136.3K)
Love the One You're...
by Emily Giffin
Scar Tissue
(51K)
Scar Tissue
by Anthony Kiedis

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.