Nothing but shame

     ‘And you expect me to be grateful! I feel shame — nothing but shame!
     ‘Very good,’ said Sir Harry equably. ‘It’s a dam’ sight better feeling shame between linen sheets in Curzon Street than feeling virtuous on a blanket in Holloway, let me tell you.’


Mr American, p.427, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, shame.

Let ’em try

A scandal was averted, and Sir Harry, taxed with his behaviour by indignant lawyers — principally his own, a sorely-tried and ready-witted practitioner in Wine Office Court — claimed total innocence of any attempt to pervert the course of justice. On being assured that he might easily have been prosecuted for conspiracy, the old soldier had remarked scornfully: ‘Let ’em try to put a ninety-two-year-old hero of Balaclava in the Scrubs if they dare. There’d be a revolution.’ And there that particular aspect of the case rested, with not a few sighs of relief.


Mr American, p.394, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, justice.

Being a martyr

     ‘She’s seen the inside of Holloway now,’ he said. ‘I know she’s set on being a martyr — they all are, these idiot women — but it’s surprising how the clang of those iron doors and the sight of those gruesome faces can change one’s mind, even a mind as stiff as hers. I’ve had more cell doors shut on me than I care to remember, and there wasn’t one I wouldn’t have sold my soul to open again.’



Mr American, p.389, Pan Books, paperback edition 1982.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, cell.

Strange germs

. . . I guess he feared being cut out by the celebrated Flashy. If that seems odd, well, captivity breeds strange germs in people’s minds, rivalries and enmities flourish, and little things wax grate.



Flashman on the March, p.214, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, captivity.

Chain retraction

      You’ve probably never worn chains, and may be interested to know that they can be a sight easier to put on than to take off.


Flashman on the March, p.210, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, chains.

Red-handed

Pity the traps hadn't caught him red-handed; ten years of skilly and fetters would have done him a power of good.


Flashman and the Tiger, p.114, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2000.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, caught.

Sane in solitary confinement

I’ve heard of chaps who kept themselves sane in solitary confinement by singing all the hymns they knew, or proving the propositions of Euclid, or reciting poetry. Each to his taste: I’m no hand at religion, or geometry, and the only respectable poem I can remember is an Ode to Horace which Arnold made me learn as a punishment for farting at prayers. So instead I compiled a mental list of all the women I’d had in my life, from the sweaty kitchen maid in Leicestershire when I was fifteen, up to the half-caste piece I’d been reprimanded for at Cawnpore, and to my astonishment there were four hundred and seventy-eight of them, which seemed rather a lot, especially since I was counting return engagements. It’s astonishing really, when you think how much time it must have taken up.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.309, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

The loveliest of all languages

If I hadn’t served long in Afghanistan, and learned the speech and ways of the Central Asian tribes, I suppose I’d have imagined that I was in a cell with a couple of madmen. But I knew this trick that they have of reviling those they respect most, in banter, of their love of irony and formal imagery, which is strong in Pushtu and even stronger in Persian, the loveliest of all languages.

Flashman at the Charge, p.221, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Pushtu, Persian.

This Sandhurst-and-Shop crowd

I’m told it’s all changing now, and that war’s no longer a gentleman’s game (as though it ever was), and that among the ‘new professionals’ a prisoner’s a prisoner so damned well cage him up. I don’t know: we treated each other decently and weren’t one jot more incompetent than this Sandhurst-and-Shop crowd. Look at that young pup Kitchener – what that fellow needs is a woman or two.

Flashman at the Charge, p.115, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,Herbert Kitchener, Lord Kitchener.