I completely agree with you on this and two of my favourite moments in the series that always give me a chuckle are in TLD. One is the “absolutely not” moment you mentioned and the second is when Dalton is in the cockpit of the cargo plane, motioning to Kara to drive up the ramp. She’s struggling to understand and you see Bond look away, role his eyes and shake his head and mutter something to himself in exasperation. It’s such a little thing, almost blink and you’ll miss it, but I absolutely love that moment.
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What I like about the “absolutely not” moment is that it’s a way to work in humor without sacrificing character. In fact, it strikes me as very “Bond” (in the Fleming sense) that he’d be all business and no-nonsense until a pretty girl talked him into doing something he knows is not, strictly speaking, a good idea. Women are his weakness.
It’s also a nice way to round out his character: up to this point, he’s been very serious and focused compared to what we’d seen in the last 12 years of Bonds, but here we get an indication of something else beneath that tough exterior. He does have a heart. This is a show of vulnerability, and it’s endearing. It makes it easier to accept it when he develops real affection for Kara later on; he may partly go back for the cello to help win her to his side, but in the big picture this incident is one of many little moments that keep reminding him this is a girl in way over her head; an innocent, even naive girl whose life is totally in his hands.
Another such moment comes near the end when Bond beats up their jailors and Kara is overjoyed to be “free.” Until Bond reminds her, “Kara, we’re in a Russian air base in the middle of Afghanistan!”
That’s how you do humor without your leading man being a comedian. Laughs are had and no one’s character had to be bent or broken to get them. And it’s real humor, as opposed to, say, Bond, Jinx and Miranda standing around the ice palace having a mirthless “Quip-Off.”
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This is it, for me.
Sanchez being such a strong villain heavily influences my preference for LTK. But if a third Dalton film was made, there’s no doubt in my mind something more mainstream ala TLD would have been both preferable and essential for a sustained era. It’s really about achieving a balance, presenting Bond as an icon the public know and love, but with a darker hue. Contrasting perfectly with Moore’s white Lotus which ruled the ocean – Dalton’s black Aston dominated the ice, because he was cold as ice.
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You and sharpshooter are making me feel dumb. 
You guys remember the James Bond Unmasked book way better than I do. So I looked in the back of the book for the full articles like you mentioned and sure enough they were there and so is THE QUOTE I/we’ve been looking for.
By the way, according to Google, the author Bill Desowitz is a crafts editor at IndieWire and is the owner of the former Immersed In Movies blog and author of James Bond Unmasked featuring interviews with all six James Bond actors. So he is legit.
Anyway, here is the full quote with my highlighting the key sentence in BOLD:
DESOWITZ: “Going into the second film, Licence To Kill, was it more tailored for you?”
DALTON: “No, I don’t think so. I simply said don’t write for me. Write a wonderful Bond story where there’s danger, where there’s humor. And my job is to play it, to fill it out. For some reason, the second one is a lot of people’s favorite of my Bonds. I MUCH PREFER THE FIRST ONE. I thought it had a good story but it was too dour. Give me jokes. Of course, it was first called Licence Revoked, but MGM didn’t think anyone would understand it. One of the things you learn as an actor is that you have to give them levels to play. It had that one theme of revenge. And it had a go at establishing a different kind of Bond. But it dragged it away completely. It came out at the time of Lethal Weapon and Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade. Why can’t you have both–seriousness and droll, cynical wit?”
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So now we have our answers to the question of 007s’ favorite Bonds:
Sean Connery – From Russia With Love
George Lazenby – On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Roger Moore – The Spy Who Loved Me
Timothy Dalton – The Living Daylights
Pierce Brosnan – GoldenEye
As for Daniel Craig, we won’t be able to get a true answer until at least two to three years after No Time To Die is released when he has left the role.
Thanks to all of you for help on this.
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