Via return of post

      “My views sir? Can’t think I have many . . . oh, I don’t know, though. Wouldn’t mind suggesting to Her Majesty’s ministers that next time they get a letter from a touchy barbarian despot, it might save ’em a deal of trouble if they sent him a civil reply via return of post . . . ”



Flashman on the March, p.287, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, post.

Another ruined village

We had reined in on the outskirts of yet another ruined village, beside a little walled enclosure filled with a great pile of bones, many of them plainly belonging to infants. I ain’t over-queasy, as you know, but the thought of how they’d come to be there turned my stomach. Uliba viewed them dispassionately.
       “Thus Theodore wins the love of his people.”


Flashman on the March, p.105, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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Unwelcome news

If there’s one thing that can make me puke with terror, it’s having an Oriental despot tell me I’m inconvenient.



Flashman and the Dragon, p.130, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



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Stay, cruel despot!

Now, I don’t recite all these barbarities to shock or excite your pity, or to pose as one of those holy hypocrites who pretend to be in a great sweat about man’s inhumanity to man. I’ve seen too much of it, and know it happens whenever strong folk have absolute power over spiritless creatures. I merely tell you what I truly saw – as for my own view, well I’m all for keeping the peasants in order, and if hammering ’em does good, and makes life better for the rest of us, you won’t find me leaping between the tyrant and his victim crying ‘Stay, cruel despot!’…

Flashman at the Charge, p.146, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,villain, despot.