A tale untold

“But there is a Flashman story kicking around about Australia and the South Seas. It’s very vague in my mind at the moment, but it’s certainly a possibility.”



George MacDonald Fraser, OBE, novelist, screenwriter and historian
2 April, 1925 - 2 January, 2008




Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, George MacDonald Fraser.

Words can put you on the run

It was like talking to a backward Bushman.



Flashman and the Tiger, p.233, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Flashman on American independence

      But try telling that to a smart New Yorker, or an Arkansas chawbacon, or a pot-bellied Virginian Senator; point out Canada and Australia managed their way to peaceful independence without any tomfool Declarations or Bunker Hills or Shilohs or Gettysburgs, and are every bit as much “the land of the free” as Kentucky or Oregon, and all you’ll get is a great harangue about “liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, damn your Limey impudence, from the first; a haw-haw and stream of tobacco juice across your boots from the second; and a deal of pious fustian about a new nation forged in blood emerging into the sunlight under Freedom’s flag, from the third. You might as well be listening to an intoxicated Frog.

Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.105, Harper Collins, 1995.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, liberty.

Saintly eyes

He was a slim, poetic-looking chap with saintly eyes, not yet fifty, and might have been a muff if you hadn’t known that he’d walked over half Australia, dying of thirst most of the time, and his slight limp was a legacy of an Aborigine’s spear in his leg.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.33, Harper Collins, 1995.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, poetic.

Political work

As a rule, I’d run a mile from political work — skulking about in nigger* clobber, living on millet and sheep guts, lousy as the tinker’s dog, scared stiff you’ll start whistling “Waltzing Matilda” in a mosque, and finishing with your head on a pole like Burnes and McNaghten.


*NB. Flashman's use of ugly racial epitaphs is a continuing problem for more enlightened, contemporary readers. The inclusion of these passages should not be mistaken for tacit support of his misanthropic, 19th century view of race relations.  



Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.38, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes.

The Australian Ideal

      She fulfilled, you see, four of the five conditions necessary for what may be called the Australian Ideal — she was an immensely rich, stunningly beautiful, highly-skilled professional amorist with the sexual appetite of a pagan princess; she did not own a public house.

Flashman and the Dragon, p.231, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, Australia.

Best memories

…a brilliant chain that runs thousands of miles from the South China Sea to Australia and the far Pacific on the other side of the world. That’s the East – the Islands; and you may take it from one who has India in his bones, there’s no sea so blue, no lands so green and no sun so bright, as you’ll find beyond Singapore. What was it Solomon had said – ‘where it’s always morning.’ So it was, and in that part of my imagination where I keep the best memories, it always will be.

Flashman's Lady, p.90, Pan edition, 1979.

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A gambler's game

It’s a gambler’s game [blackjack/vingt-et-un], in which you must decide whether to stay pat at 16 or 17, or risk another card which may break you or, if it’s a small one, may give you a winning score of 20 or 21. I’ve played it from Sydney to Sacramento, and learned to stick at 17, like Aunt Selina. The odds are with the bank, since when the scores are level the banker takes the stakes.

Flash For Freedom!, p.33, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,blackjack.

I began to understand

I began to understand that if Carl Gustaf hadn’t survived it would have been waltzing matilda for Flashy if Sapten had had his way.

Royal Flash, p.238, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes.

London clubs

In my time I’ve played nap in the Australian diggings with gold-dust stakes, held a blackjack bank on a South Sea trader, and been in a poker game in a Dodge City livery stable with the pistols down on the blanket – and I’ve met less sharping in all of ’em put together than you’d find in one evening in a London club.

Royal Flash, p.14, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes.

A variety of jails

I have been in a variety of jails in my life, from Mexico (where they are truly abominable) to Australia, America, Russia, and dear old England, and I never saw a good one yet.

Flashman, p.209, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,jail.