Wings to my wits

      There’s no doubt about it, I’m good at dealing with barmy savages. They scare the bile out of me, and perhaps terror lends wings to my wits, for when i think of the monsters I’ve conversed with and come away with a whole skin, more or less . . . Mangas Colorado, Ranavalona, General Sang-kol-in-sin, Crazy Horse, Dr. Arnold, God knows who else . . . well, it took more than luck, I can tell you. You must know when to grovel and scream for mercy, but also when to take ’em aback with impudence or argument or pure bamboozle.


Flashman on the March, pp.189-90, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, terror.

Dooced appropriate

…for once I’d recognized his quotation — it had been framed on the wall of the hospital at Rugby, where I’d sobered up on that distant day when Arnold kicked me out . . . “Olim miminisse juvabit”,* and dooced appropriate, too, Seneca, if memory serves.


*It will be pleasant to remember former troubles — Virgil (not Seneca).


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.63, Harper Collins, 1995.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, troubles.

Flower of the 11th Hussars

Picture if you will that score of primitives with their painted faces and head-bands and ragged kilts and boots, fairly bristling with lances and hatchets, and in their midst the tall figure of the English gentlemen, flower of the 11th Hussars, with a white stripe across his face, his hair rank to his shoulders, his buckskins stinking to rival the Fleet Ditch, lance in fist and knife on hip—you’d never think he played at Lord’s or chatted with the Queen or been rebuked by Dr Arnold for dirty finger-nails (well, yes, you might) or been congratulated by my Lord Cardigan on his brilliant turnout.

Flashman and the Redskins, pp.181-2, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, gentleman.

Damned beyond doubt

I don’t hold with oaths, much, and I’m not by nature, a truthful man, but on the three occasions that I’ve sworn blood brotherhood it has seemed a more solemn thing than swearing on the Bible. Arnold was right; I’m damned beyond a doubt.

Flashman at the Charge, p.244, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,blood brother, bible.

Just the man

He was one of these direct, virtuous souls, bursting with decency, whose very thought was written plainly on his fresh, handsome face. Arnold would have loved him – and young Chard could have used a few of him at Rorke’s Drift, too. Brainless as a bat, of course, and just the man for my present needs.

Flash For Freedom!, p.119, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,virtuous.

A rotter still

Strange, but as the coach won clear and we rattled down the Mall, with the cheers dying behind us, I could hear Arnold’s voice saying. ‘There is good in you, Flashman,’ and I could imagine how he would suppose himself vindicated at this moment, and preach on ‘Courage’ in the chapel, and pretend to rejoice in the redeemed prodigal – but all the time he would know in his hypocrite heart that I was a rotter still.

Flashman, p.275, Pan edition, 12th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Thomas Arnold, rotter.