Napier included

One thing was plain: given a few decent guns, the Salvation Army could have held Magdala against anyone, Napier included . . .

Flashman on the March, p.259, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, Salvation Army.

Sapper jacket and .44 revolver

Instead of a smoking, blood-stained ruin, there was the plush and guilt of the circle bar at the St James’s Theatre, instead of the Sapper jacket and .44 revolver there was an opera cloak and silver-mounted cane, and instead of dead Zulus for company there was Oscar Wilde. (I make no comparisons.)


Flashman and the Tiger, p.289, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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I can’t abide leeks

As an unworthy holder of that Cross myself, I’ll say they earned them, and as much glory as you like, for there never was a stand like it in all the history of war. For they didn’t only stand against impossible odds, you see — they stood and won, the garrulous little buggers, and not just ’cos they had Martinis against spears and clubs and a few muskets; they beat ’em hand to hand too, steel against steel at the barricades, and John Zulu gave them best. Well, you know what I think of heroism, and I can’t abide leeks, but I wear a daffodil as my buttonhole on Davey’s Day, for Rorke’s Drift.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.288, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


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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.


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Academic jealousy

…he was still larding his conversation with Latin tags — he’d been a mighty scholar, you see, before they rode him out of Oxford on a rail, for garroting the Vice-chancellor or running guns into Wadham, likely, tho’ he always claimed it was academic jealousy.



Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.39, Harper Collins, 1995.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, guns.

In my callow youth

      There was a time, in my callow youth, when the discovery that I was running not opium but guns would have had me bolting frantically for the nearest patch of timber, protesting that it was nothing to do with me, constable, and the chap in charge would be along in a moment.

Flashman and the Dragon, p.28, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.

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Little Bighorn

           I’ll say two other things. If the 7th had had decent carbines, thay might have sickened the Sioux and been able to hole up on the hill, as Reno did. And that was Custer’s fault, too. He should have tested those pieces before he went near the Powder Country—tested ’em until they were red-hot, and he’d have seen them jam. T’other thing—Reno deserved the clean bill he got from the court-martial. I didn’t know him, much, but Napoleon himself couldn’t have done any better. If Custer had done half as well, there’d be a few old troopers still telling stretchers about how they survived the struggle up Greasy Grass hill.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.332, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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If it comes to firearms

‘India and Afghanistan ain’t in the Haymarket, uncle,’ says I, looking humble-offended, ‘and if it comes to firearms, well, I’ve handled enough of ’em, Brown Bess, Dreyse needles, Colts, Lancasters, Brunswicks, and so forth’ – I’d handled them with considerable reluctance, but he didn’t know that.

Flashman at the Charge, p.13, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Haymarket, firearms.

I don't bilk at much

I don’t bilk at much: I watched them blowing sepoys from the ends of guns at Cawnpore, and I ate my dinner at Peking an hour after the massacre, but I confess Spring’s method of disposing of incriminating evidence made me gulp.

Flash For Freedom!, p.113, Pan edition, 8th printing, 1980.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes.