You bloody vandals

      My first thought was, why, you bloody vandals, I don’t shock easy, and have no more of the milk of human kindness than you’d put in a cup of tea; I’ll taunt and gloat over a fallen foe any day, and out a boot in his ribs if he sasses back — but I’m a brute and a bully. These were your upstanding pillars of society, bursting with Christian piety and love thy neighbour, and here they were, shaking their sanctimonious heads as they harassed and goaded a seemingly dying man… They even had the effrontery to argue and hector him, now that he was beat and helpless — I’d have liked to see ’em argue with him eight hours back, when he was standing up with his guns on.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.339, Harper Collins, 1995.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, taunt.

The deuce of a row

Now, you may not credit this, but I’m not much of a hand at orgies. I ain’t what you call a prude, but I do hold that an Englishman’s brothel is his castle, where he should behave accordingly — as many flash-tails as he likes, but none of these troop fornications that the Orientals indulge in. It’s not the indecency I mind, but the company of a lot of boozy brutes hallooing and kicking up the deuce of a row when I want to concentrate and give of my best.


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, pp.92-3, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, indecency.

Heavy breathing

I could hear Kavanaugh breathing heavily - the brute positively panted in Irish...

Flashman in the Great Game, p.253, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes, Irish.

Grinning on the terrace

…the ghillies loafed about grinning on the terrace with the guns and pouches – they knew I loathed it, and that Ellenborough couldn’t carry his guts for more than ten yards without a rest, and the brutes enjoyed our discomfiture.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.47, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Edward Law, Earl of Ellenborough.

Ever the diplomat, our Flash

Such conditions of squalor, half the year in stifling heat, half in unimaginable cold, and all spent in back-breaking labour, are probably enough to explain why they [Russian serfs] were such an oppressed, dirty, brutish, useless people – just like the Irish, really, but without the gaiety.

Flashman at the Charge, p.144, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Irish, Russians.

The Flashman character profile

…I was so relieved that I was almost happy as I listened to him denouncing me for a wastrel, a fornicator, a cheat, a liar, a brute, and all the rest of it – I couldn’t fault a word of it, anyway.

Flash For Freedom!, p.40, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,William Elphinstone, Elphy Bey.