Some impossible bet

Not that he wanted to pursue giggling housemaids, or get drunk, or go to sleep over the port, or any of the other unimagined things which the eccentric General might have done — he was the kind who would have wandered off to the kitchens and exchanged drinking reminiscences with the butler, or charmed the cook with recollections of exotic food eaten at the ends of the earth, or started a five-card school with the under footman, or lured Admiral Fisher into some impossible bet over the billiard table.


Mr American, pp.202-03, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, pursue.

Wink, wink

. . . in Ab society, which as I’ve told you is probably the most immoral on earth (Cheltenham ain’t in it), rogering the hostess is almost obligatory,  part of the etiquette, like leaving cards, and not at all out of the way in a country where it’s considered a mortal insult to praise a woman’s chastity, since it implies that she’s not attractive enough to be galloped. Say no more.


Flashman on the March, p.169, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, etiquette.

A gambler's game

It’s a gambler’s game [blackjack/vingt-et-un], in which you must decide whether to stay pat at 16 or 17, or risk another card which may break you or, if it’s a small one, may give you a winning score of 20 or 21. I’ve played it from Sydney to Sacramento, and learned to stick at 17, like Aunt Selina. The odds are with the bank, since when the scores are level the banker takes the stakes.

Flash For Freedom!, p.33, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,blackjack.

A much better motto

So I told him I had ambitions, too – to live as I please, love as I please and never grow old. He didn’t think much of that , I fancy; he told me I was frivolous, and would be disappointed. Only the strong, he said, could afford ambitions. So I told him I had a much better motto than that…
“Courage – and shuffle the cards”...

Royal Flash, p.25, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1978.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,motto.