A sort of atmospheric pressure

     ‘Are you saying,’ said Mr Franklin grimly, ‘the trial was rigged?’
     ‘You’re a bigger ass than I thought you were, if you believe that,’ said Sir Harry. ‘Of course it wasn’t. It didn’t have to be. This isn’t America, where you have to slip a thousand dollars to a congressman or a judge to get things done. You’re a new country; things ain’t settled yet. But here — things aren’t rigged. Look at Button — her father’s a lord, connected to God knows who. She’s my great niece, and I’m half-Paget, and my sister-in-law married a Rothschild, and among the lot of us I dare say we’re connected to half the criminal upper-classes — you don’t “rig” things because you don’t have to. There’s a sort of atmospheric pressure that causes things to go properly and fittingly. Button couldn’t go to jail unless her family washed their hands of her — which they would, like a shot, if it was murder or high treason. But smashing pictures? Hardly. And it isn’t rigging, you see. You couldn’t rig a British judge and jury nowadays, not if you tried.’


Mr American, p.430, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, rig.

The delight in blood

“But do you understand the joy of killing for its own sake? The delight in blood and the agony of the dying?” She shook her head. “From all I have heard, that is not in the British nature.”
      You should see a Newgate scragging, you poor ignorant aborigine, thinks I.


Flashman on the March, p.108, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, killing.

A reluctant hand

. . . my tale of the strangest campaign in the whole history of British arms — and that takes in some damned odd affairs, a few of which I’ve borne a reluctant hand in myself. But Abyssinia took the cake, currants and all.


Flashman on the March, pp.3-4, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, cake.

Prefer to substitute

     Somewhere or other that downy bird Kipling observes that the lesson of the island race is to put away all emotion and entrap the alien at the proper time.* I learned it in my cradle, long before he wrote it, and have practised it all my life with some success, and only this difference, that for “entrap” I prefer to substitute “escape”.

* Footnote 16: The quotation is from "In Ambush", in Stalky & Co.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.89, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Flashman, ein Englander and ein Edelmann

      “Wer ist es?” says a female voice, and not knowing the German for Roger the Lodger I said it was Flashman, ein Englander and ein Edelman, and a pal of Blowitz's.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.65, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Worth an extra division

      I ain’t one of your by jingoes, and I won’t swear that the British soldier is braver than any other — or even, as Charley Gordon said, that he’s brave for a little while longer. But I will swear that there’s no soldier on earth who believes so strongly in the courage of the men alongside him — and that’s worth an extra division any day. Provided you’re not standing alongside me, that is.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.255, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, jingoism.

Exchanging governments

      1876 being the hundredth anniversary of the glorious moment when the Yankee colonists exchanged a government of incompetent British scoundrels for one of ambitious American sharpers…

Flashman and the Redskins, p.251, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, revolution.

Cold eyes and pale faces

‘Can you not see that that is not our way – that none of our ways are your ways? you talk of your reforms, and the benefits of British law and the Sirkar’s rule – and never think that what seems ideal to you may not suit others; that we have our own customs, which you may think strange and foolish, and perhaps they are – but they are ours – our own! You come, in your strength, and your certaintu, with your cold eyes and pale faces, like … like machines marching out of your northern ice and you will have everything in order, tramping in step like your soldiers, whether those you conquer and civilize – as you call it – whether they will do or no. Do you not see that it is better to leave people be – to let them alone?’

Flashman in the Great Game, p.95, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Rani Lakshmibai.

Thoughts of home

It’s a strange thing, to come through hundreds of miles of wilderness, from a foreign land and moving in the wrong direction, and suddenly find yourself sniffing the air and thinking, ‘home’. If you’re British, and have soldiered in India, you’ll understand what I mean.

Flashman at the Charge, p.214, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,India, British.

The battery at Balaclava

‘And our moujiks are, well, different from yours’. I wondered, even as I said it, if they were; remembering that hospital at Yalta, I doubted it. But I couldn’t help adding: ‘Would your moujiks have ridden into the battery at Balaclava?’

Flashman at the Charge, p.148, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Charge of the Light Brigade.

We're British Cavalry

What they [the Russian officers] couldn’t fathom was how we’d held together all the way to the guns, and hadn’t broken or turned back, even with four saddles empty out of five, so I told ’em, ‘We’re British cavalry,’ simple as that, and looked them in the eye. It was true, too, even if no one had less right to say it than I.

Flashman at the Charge, p.118, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Charge of the Light Brigade, The reason why.

Pass the marmalade, Amelia

They [the English public] wanted blood, gallons of it, and to read of grape-shot smashing great lanes through Russian ranks, and stern and noble Britons skewering Cossacks, and Russia towns in flames – and they would be able to shake their heads over the losses of our gallant fellows, sacrificed to stern duty, and wolf down their kidneys and muffins in their warm breakfast rooms, saying: ‘Dreadful work this, but by George, England never shirked yet, whatever the price. Pass the marmalade, Amelia; I’m proud to be a Briton this day, let me tell you.’

Flashman at the Charge, p.52, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Crimean War, blood.

British-officer-like

‘My person is my affair,’ says I, very British-officer-like, ‘and your honour is yours. I accept your apology.’

Flashman, p.103, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,British.