No half-measures

      One of the lessons I'd impress on young chaps is this: if you want to pull a bluff, do it with your might, no half-measures. However unlikely the ploy, if your neck is brazen enough, it's odds on you'll get away with it. Take the time I was caught in flagrante in a Calcutta hotel by an outraged husband and sold him on the idea I was a doctor sounding her chest, or the occasion when they found me climbing through Jefferson Davis's skylight and I pretended to be a workman come to fix his lightning-rod. A moment's guilty hesitation and I'd have been done for; indignant astonishment at being interfered with saw me through.

Flashman and the Tiger, p.115, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, bluff.

Those fortunate few

…if life has taught me anything, it’s that the wealth and comfort of the fortunate few (who include our contented middle classes as well as the nobility) will always depend on the sweat and poverty of the unfortunate many, whether they’re toiling on plantations or licking labels in sweat shops at a penny a thousand. It’s the way of the world, and until Utopia comes, which it shows no sign of doing, thank God, I’ll just rub along with the few, minding my own business.



Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.22, Harper Collins, 1995.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, life.