True words

     ‘One thing becomes clear,’ said Mr Franklin grimly, ‘and that is that every word she said about you is true.’
     ‘What, about being deceitful and dishonest and rotten to the core, you mean? Of course it’s true,’ said Sir Harry comfortably.


Mr American, p.438, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, true.

People he loves

     ‘Although he is quite a dreadful person, really. He is absolutely selfish and dishonest and quite shameless. He has a shocking reputation — and deserves it. Just a few years ago he had to leave Sandringham in disgrace. ‘ She had apparently forgotten that Mr Franklin had been there. ‘How Aunt Elspeth has endured him . . . do you know that next year they will have been married for seventy-five years? It seems incredible . . . she is ninety years old, and a darling. So is he, I suppose — and yet sometimes I feel that I hate him more than anyone I’ve ever known; you would not beleve how mean and deceitful he can be — even with people he loves.’


Mr American, p.433, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, hate.

Dam’ few crowned heads

      And their Christianity don't run to morality, not far at least. They lie and deceive with a will, drink to excess, slaughter each other for amusement, and the women couple like stoats. The corollary to their adage that ‘a virtuous woman is a crown to husband’ is that there are dam’ few crowned heads in Abyssinia, and hear, hear! say I, for ’twould be a cruel shame to have all that splendid married pulchritude going to waste.



Flashman on the March, p.22, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


(With thanks to Dundrillon for suggesting this quote.)


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, morality.

A cool half million

           If you’ve read my previous memoirs you’ll know me better than Speedicut did, and won’t share his misgivings about trusting me with a cool half million in silver. Old Flash may be a model of the best vices — lechery, treachery, poltroonery, deceit and dereliction of duty, all present and correct, as you know, and they’re not the half of it — but larceny ain’t his style at all.


Flashman on the March, p.15, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, larceny.

Her flash arts

      There is a tide in the affairs of men when you simply have to chuck it — as, for example, when you learn that the wife of your unsuspecting bosom is a practised thimblerigger who has used her flash arts to ruin an innocent man.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.260, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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Carnal intent, hurrah!

      The discovery that you've been sold a pup is always disconcerting, but your reaction depends on age and experience. In infancy you burst into tears and smash something; in adolescence you may be bewildered (as I was when Lady Geraldine lured me into the long grass on flase pretence and then set about me with carnal intent, hurrah!); in riper manhood common sense usually tells you to bolt, which was my instinct on the Pearl River when I learned that my lorcha was carrying not opium, as I'd supposed, but guns for the Taiping rebels. But at sixty-one your brain works faster than your legs, so you reflect, and as often as not reach the right answer by intuition as well as reason.

Flashman and the Tiger, p.134, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.

 
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Birth of a cricketer

...Rugby taught me only two things really well, survival and cricket, for I saw even at the tender age of eleven that while bribery, fawning, and deceit might ensure the former, they weren’t enough to earn a popular reputation, which is a very necessary thing. for that, you had to shine at games, and cricket was the only one for me.

Flashman's Lady, p.12, Pan edition, 1979.

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Deceptions small and large

He’d spotted me for an old soldier, you see, which was all to the good; having detected me in a small deception, it never occurred to him to look for a large one.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.116, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,deception.