The delight in blood

“But do you understand the joy of killing for its own sake? The delight in blood and the agony of the dying?” She shook her head. “From all I have heard, that is not in the British nature.”
      You should see a Newgate scragging, you poor ignorant aborigine, thinks I.


Flashman on the March, p.108, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, killing.

The English view

“What did you think of him . . . from an English point of view, I mean?”
… “From an English point of view? Well, they’d not take him in Whites . . . not sure about Reform, though.”


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.342, Harper Collins, 1995.



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Practising pagan

…there’s one rule, as a practicing pagan, that I don’t break if I can help — never offend the local tribal gods; it ain’t lucky.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.80, Harper Collins, 1995.


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It's his rock

That’s worth bearing in mind when you hear some smart alec holding forth about our imperial wars being one-sided massacres of poor club-waving heathen mown down by Gatlings. Oh, it happened, at Ulundi and Washita and Omdurman — but more often than not the Snider and Martini and Brown Bess were facing odds of ten to one against in country where shrapnel and rapid fire doesn’t count for much; your savage with his blowpipe or bow or jezzail* behind a rock has a deuce of an advantage: it’s his rock, you see.


*Afghan musket


Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.58, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.


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Flashman on the British Empire

You’ll have heard it said that the British Empire was acquired in a fit of absence of mind — one of those smart Oscarish squibs that sounds well but is thoroughly fat-headed. Presence of mind, if you like — and countless other things, such as greed and Christianity, decency and villainy, policy and lunacy, deep design and blind chance, pride and trade, blunder and curiosity, passion, ignorance, chivalry and expediency, honest pursuit of right, and determination to keep the bloody Frogs out. And as often as not, such things came tumbling together, and when the dust had settled, there we were, and who else was going to set things straight and feed the folk and guard the gate and dig the drains — oh, aye, and take the profits, by all means.



Flashman and the Mountain of Light, p.24, Fontana Paperback edition, 1991.



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Flashman and the art of Chinese calligraphy

. . . a little chap was waiting with a bag of silver and a scroll, which I was invited to sign with a paint-brush. When in Rome . . . I painted him a small cat sitting on a wall, he beamed and I strode out to the cart . . .


Flashman and the Dragon, p.95, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



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Fiercer and stronger

(And you won’t teach John Chinaman different by blowing his cities apart with artillery, or trampling his country underfoot. Well, if a footpad knocks you down, or a cannibal eats you, it don’t follow that he’s your superior, does it? Fiercer and stronger, perhaps, but infinitely lower in the scale of creation. That’s how the Chinese think of us — and damn the facts that stare ’em in the face.)

Flashman and the Dragon, pp.16-17, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.

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One invariable rule

…there were many Sioux burial platforms, mostly broken and derelict, but some quite new, and the troops thought it great fun to scatter them to bits. I remarked in Terry’s hearing that it was bad medicine—for one thing, his Ree and Crow scouts wouldn’t like it—and he ordered it stopped. If you wonder why I put in my oar, I’ll answer that I’ve soldiered far and hard enough to learn one invariable rule, superstition or not: never monkey with the local gods. It don’t pay.


Flashman and the Redskins, p.289, Pan Books edition, 1983.



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Drains and bottled beer

      You see, it’s the great illusion of our civilization that when the poor heathen saw our steamships and elections and drains and bottled beer, he’d realise what a benighted ass he’d been and come into the fold. But he don’t. Oh, he’ll take what he fancies, and can use (cheap booze and rifles), but not on that account will he think we’re better. He knows different.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.170, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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An Apache ponders

Why should the Americanos try to force their law on us? . . . It is because their spirit tells them to spread their law to all people, and they believe their spirit is better than ours.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.167, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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