A tasting note from Flashy

The General took a pull at his wine and grimaced. ‘I wish to God someone would tell the Hungarians that their wine would be greatly improved if they didn’t eat the grapes first.’


Mr American, p.518, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, wine.

Hungarian for bosom

. . . he found his host ensconced in a corner, looking like a lecherous Old Testament prophet in evening dress and decorations, drinking bull’s blood and trying to converse in what might have been a Balkan language with a buxom waitress in native costume.
    ‘You don’t know the Hungarian for bosom?’ he was saying. ‘Well, you ought to, of all people . . . here, I’ll show you — ah, there you are, Yankee, arriving inopportunely as usual.’


Mr American, p.517, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, bosom.

Over the wall

They’d been my associates in a botched attempt to rescue Max on the eve of his execution. We’d failed because (you’ll hardly credit this) the great clown had refused point-blank to escape because it didn’t sort with his imperial dignity, Austro-Hungarian royalty preferring to die than go over the wall.


Flashman on the March, p.5, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, dignity.

An ornery lot

“Know anythin’ about Hungary?”
      I understood it was the biggest state in the empire bar Austria itself, and that the natives were an ornery lot, but fine horseman.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.86, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, Hungary.