The Day Of The Jackal Quotes
"There is no man in the world who is proof against an assassin’s bullet."
"A professional does not act out of fervour, and is therefore more calm and less likely to make elementary errors."
"The only questions that remain are who, and for how much."
"If the job is to be done, an outsider has to do it."
"De Gaulle’s exposure rate is very high. Of course, it’s possible to kill him."
"The point is that the chances of escape would not be too high."
"A man who does not wish to be disturbed usually has a reason for his solitude."
"The planning will be mine, as with the operation."
"In principle it is always possible with enough time and planning."
"Since we have been speaking of hunting, what about the Jackal? Will that do?"
"We may have to take up the Jackal’s suggestion and rob a few banks."
"I don't like that man. He works alone, without allies. Such men are dangerous."
"If anyone can do it, he can. Now we have made our play. Let us get on with our side and let him get on with his."
"From one end of the country to the other banks were held up with pistols, sawn-off shotguns, and submachine guns on an almost daily basis."
"The danger hours were in daylight, when any bank or jeweller’s shop throughout the country could be surprised in the middle of business by the appearance of two or three armed and masked men."
"It did not take the French authorities long to realize the OAS was behind the outbreak, nor that for some reason the OAS needed money in a hurry."
"In his surprisingly small work-strewn office at the headquarters of the PJ at 36 Quai des Orfevres, along the banks of the Seine, a chart was prepared showing the cash or, in the case of jewellery, approximate re-sale value of the stolen money and gems."
"By the simple expedient of going to the local lending library and looking up the entry for the French President in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, he found at the end of the entry a comprehensive list of reference books about his subject."
"He read voraciously and planned meticulously, and possessed the faculty to store in his mind an enormous amount of factual information on the offchance that he might later have a use for it."
"To assassinate him, as was later proved, was considerably more difficult than to kill President John F. Kennedy of the United States."
"On the credit side he could reasonably bank on his own anonymity, and on the choleric refusal of his victim to co-operate with his own security forces."
"The sight of the OAS chiefs running scared was reward enough in itself."
"This he caught, and dined well, arriving in Brussels in the last hours of July."
"Kowalski did not understand a word of the babble of Italian, but he got the sense and he recognized his own name, badly pronounced though it was."
"He had cottoned from the Italian, now standing with spaniel eyes by his side staring up as if he, Kowalski, was the fount of human knowledge who would solve the dilemma."
"Kowalski looked down. ‘Bon. Je vais demander,’ he said loftily."
"He could see only Kowalski, no one else in the lift. It was purely routine, happening every time the lights above the lift doors indicated that the ascending lift was coming beyond the seventh floor."
"Kovacs began by saying that he had seen a newspaper story on the day of writing, which a friend had read aloud to him."
"The child, she told him, was his, and he may have believed it because he wanted to."
"Nevertheless, three years later, before a long combat mission in the Algerian hills, the chaplain had proposed to him that he might like to make a will."
"‘What,’ the corporal suddenly blurted out, ‘is Luke something?’"
"Sitting up on the roof in the hot Roman night, his bulky form merging into the shadows of the air conditioner ventilation stack, Kowalski worried about a little girl in a bed in Marseilles with Luke something in her blood."
"Purely by chance, because he was a conscientious man anxious to please a foreigner, the clerk spelt the name out to underline that he had got it right."
"‘But in the long run no problems. The man had come round. He felt the tension drain out of him."
"The Mediterranean city was still a big import-base for American foodstuffs and murders committed for these foodstuffs were not uncommon."
"‘You need have no fears of that, cher ami. This place is mine, very discreet, and nobody comes in here unless they are invited in by me."
"They looked back at him, his wife imploring, the two Secret Service toughs without noticeable expression."
"The Jackal rose at the same time and made his meticulous preparations."
"The Jackal did not wish to be seen by the staff of his hotel carrying a cheap fibre suitcase, so although he was late for lunch he took a taxi straight to the mainline station and deposited the case in the left-luggage office."
"The lunging pickaxe handle swung out of the gap and down towards his forehead."
"The local office can clean it up. It's their bloody flat."
"If he wasn't built like a bull they would have done."
"This is a prison. All right, it’s for offenders against the security of the state. But I am still the prison doctor."
"Mind-bending drugs now would simply produce an idiot, no use to you or anyone else."
"The brilliant afternoon that had warmed the friendly pavements of Paris throughout the day faded to golden dusk."
"The open-fronted cafés along the water’s edge were alive with chatter and clink of glasses."
"In layman’s terms: possible fracture of the right wrist."
"Entering France with three suitcases and an attaché case, he estimated he would leave with one suitcase and the hand luggage."
"The unmistakable reek of fear and pain."
"The interest of France is that the President of France is not seen to be cowering before the menace of a miserable hireling."
"The entire resources of the organizations headed by the men seated round the table would be at his disposal."
"The world passed into the morning of August 12th."
"It is not public knowledge. It is extremely private knowledge, confined to a tiny handful of men who carry in their heads secrets that, if revealed, might well ruin half the politicians of their own countries."
"He is a professional operator and not one of the numberless bee-in-the-bonnet merchants that made the Special Branch’s life a misery before and during any foreign statesman’s visit."
"The political assassin is the world’s outlaw."
"There’s no reason for them not to. Hundreds of highly confidential inquiries are made each year by senior policemen of the Interpol countries, some of them on an unofficial person-to-person basis."
"For policemen, Minister, it’s all crime. That is why I preferred to contact my foreign colleagues rather than inquire through foreign ministries."
"He could never get near the President now that his plan has been exposed."
"Better a few men should know we are looking for a killer than they should receive invitations to attend the President’s funeral."
"The only people who did worry him were the English. If it could only be kept between cops, he would have trusted Mallinson."
"He had few illusions that the heads of the Homicide departments of the major police forces of the Western world would fail to understand what he was hinting at but could not say."
"There could be no comebacks on the basis of the search of records that had been made. But supposing there was something behind the inquiry from France?"
"It was a good joke and he enjoyed it very much."
"Yes, I suppose they'll go right ahead and co-operate with the French."
"I feel I must draw your attention to the fact that I am on the staff of the Service."
"If you disagree with my course of conduct of last night, it would be more seemly if your complaint went to my own superior officer rather than to me directly."
"One does not need to be a genius to deduce the only possible reason for the French authorities wishing to identify such a specimen."
"Would you please give me a résumé of the state of your enquiries up to the present time?"
"Before long the world would be handed over to the new people."
"Within an hour your superiors will be authorized by me personally to accord you every facility within their powers."
"If he's not travelling on this passport, then what is he travelling on?"
"The speed cop brought his arm down from the salute, gave the Jackal an indolent gesture that he could now proceed, and stalked off to his motor-cycle parked against the war memorial."
"Claude Lebel, who had landed a mile on the other side of the township and had been driven to the driveway of the hotel in a police car, walked up to the front door accompanied by Caron."
"Summoned by the desk clerk, the proprietor appeared from his labours over the accounts in the office."
"The question now is where the hell has he gone, and does he suspect yet that we know who he is?"
"The moment he breaks cover we have got him."
"The police vans from Clermont Ferrand, backed up by others contributed by Ussel, set up their headquarters in the village square."
"The only thing to report was that there was nothing."
"I must apologize. I have been very silly not to see it before."
"The barman was delighted. A ‘straight’? No, he couldn’t be, he wouldn’t be here."
"The Jackal made his mark shortly after midnight."
"‘Tell the monsieur,’ he said clearly, ‘that he does not attract me.’"
"‘Would you permit that I sit here?’ he asked. ‘One is embarrassing me.’"
"‘Oooh, I can’t stand violence,’ he said."
"Hundreds of thousands in the streets, in taxis and on buses were stopped and their papers examined."
"‘We can’t find him,’ he said briefly. ‘He’s vanished, just disappeared off the face of the earth.’"
"‘I don’t think,’ he said at length, ‘that he will risk getting killed himself. He is a mercenary, he kills for money.’"