His quiet smile

      There was general laughter at this, and Napier said with his quiet smile that we must resign ourselves to being regarded as callously irresponsible or rapaciously greedy. “Brutal indifference or selfish imperialism; those are the choices. As an old Scotch maidservant of my acquaintance used to say: ‘Ye cannae dae right for daein’ wrang!’


Flashman on the March, pp.286-7, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, resign.

Lady Flashman's burden

. . . being Scotch herself, and fancying that she occupied a place in Society, she was forever burdening other unfortunate Caledonians with her presence . . .


Flashman and the Tiger, p.289, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, Caledonian.

Couthie and slee

. . . I put my knee against his, and smiled ‘couthie and slee’, to fetch him, for he always had a fancy to me, you know, and men are so vain and silly, even an old dame like me can gowk them . . .


Flashman and the Tiger, p.259, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, vain.

Deeply Moved

As always when deeply moved she was getting Scotcher by the minute . . .


Flashman and the Tiger, p.256, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, Scots.

Feegh!

. . . she gave one of her wordless Caledonian exclamations of impatience . . .


Flashman and the Tiger, p.256, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, exclamation.

The fodder of her native heath

      We were at breakfast, which for me in my indulgent age was Russian style (sausage, brandy, and coffee and for her the fodder of her native heath: porridge, ham, eggs, black pudding, some piscine abomination called Arbroath smokies, oatcakes, rolls, and marmalade (God knows how she’s kept her figure), while we read the morning journals.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.254, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, breakfast.

Titled fury

      Talk about a woman scorned; their fury ain’t in it with a Scotch Baronet’s wounded self-esteem.



Flashman and the Tiger, p.240, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, scorned.

Jingling her loot

      “Och, isn’t he the wee duck?” sighs she, jingling her loot as he hobbled away. “Aye, weel, mony a mickle mak’s a muckle, as Papa used to say.” She slipped it into her bag and broke into civilised speech.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.229, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, loot.

Uneasliy adrift

      Ulysses S. Grant never called for help in his life, but just then I seemed to catch a glimpse within the masterful commander and veteran statesman, of the thin-skinned Scotch yokel from Ohio tanyard uneasily adrift in an old so-superior world which he’d have liked to despise but couldn’t help feeling in awe of.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.19, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, yokel.

Added spice

…I’m not one of those who count danger an added spice, least of all in houghmagandie, as Elspeth used to call it whenever I got her tipsy


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.44, Harper Collins, 1995.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, danger.

Scotch nemesis

There was one quiet Lancer, though, a black-whiskered Scotch nemesis who said never a word, and played the bull fiddle for his recreation. He caught my eye then, and again fifteen years later when he led the march to Peking, the most terrible killing gentleman you every saw: Hope Grant.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.274, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, nemesis.

A belted earl

      But I suspect he had another reason, which he may not have admitted to himself: I believe that the Summer Palace offended Elgin; that the thought of so much luxury and extravagance for the pleasure of the privileged, selfish few, while the coolie millions paid for it and lived in squalor, was too much for his Scottish stomach. Odd notion for a belted earl you think? Well, perhaps I’m wrong.

Flashman and the Dragon, p.281, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, stomach.

As my wife would say

…in fact, he and Grant were just “makking siccar”, as my wife would say…


Flashman and the Dragon, p.239, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, siccar.

A shared enemy

…Royals in their shirt-sleeves mingling with the Tirailleurs to swap baccy and gossip (it’s damned sinister, if you ask me, how the Jocks and Frogs always drift together)…

Flashman and the Dragon, p.160, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, gossip.

Savage females of the species

… I say this without conceit, since it ain’t my doing — while civilized women have been more than ordinarily partial to me, my most ardent admirers have been the savage females of the species. Take the captain of Gezo’s Amazons, for example, who’d ogled me so outrageously during the death-house feast; or Sonsee-array the Apache (my fourth wife, in a manner of speaking); or Queen Ranavalona, who’d once confessed shyly that when I died she intended to have part of me pickled in a bottle, and worshipped; or Lady Caroline Lamb — the Dahomey slave, not the other one, who was before my time. Yes, I’ve done well among the barbarian ladies. Elspeth, of course, is Scottish.



Flashman and the Dragon, p.81, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, barbarian.

Home-grown savages in tow

…I took a chapatti and a handful of chilis, gave the time of day to a naik with the Sobraon medal, and passed on, drawn by the distant pig-squeal of pipes that always makes my dear wife burst into tears—ah, we’ve our own home-grown savages in tow, have we, thinks I. But they weren’t Highlanders, just the Royals. Flashman and the Dragon, p.45, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.

Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, Highlnders.

Some imaginary trader

I don’t know who ran the first chest of opium into China but he was a great man in his way. It was as though some imaginary trader had put into the Forth with a cargo of Glenlivet to discover that the Scots had never heard of whisky.

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

Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, opium.

Common Scotch mania

Elspeth was all for it; she suffered from the common Scotch mania for improvement and progress through machinery and tracts…

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

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, mania.

Spoils of war

It was a great bloody carnival, with everyone making the most of the war: I recall one incident, in a Lucknow courtyard (I believe it may have been the Begum’s palace) in which I saw Highlanders, their gory bayonets laid aside, smashing open chests that were simply stuffed with jewels, and grinning idiot little Goorkhas breaking mirrors for sheer sport and wiping their knives on silks and fabrics worth a fortune – they didn’t know any better. There were Sikh infantry dancing with gold chains and necklaces round their necks, an infantry subaltern staggering under a great enameled pot overflowing with coins, a naval gunner bleeding to death with a huge shimmering bolt of cloth-of-gold clasped in his arms – there were dead and dying men everywhere, our own fellows as well as pandies, and desperate hand-to-hand fighting going on just over the courtyard wall; muskets banging, men shrieking, two Irishmen coming to blows over a white marble statuette smeared with blood, and Billy Russell stamping and damning his luck because he had no rupees on him to buy the treasure which private soldiers were willing to trade away for the price of a bottle of rum.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.264, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes, loot.

One degree more snobbish

Being a Scotch tradesman’s daughter, my darling was one degree more snobbish than a penniless Spanish duke, and in the days before we went north her condescension to her middle-class friends would have turned your stomach.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.19, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,snobbish, condescension.