An indiscriminate rake

I’m not an indiscriminate rake, you see; I like to be interested in a woman in a way that is not merely carnal, to find out new fascinations in her with each encounter, those enchanting, mysterious, indefinable qualities, like the shape of her tits.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.78, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Simple and shrewd

They were an odd lot, those frontiersmen, simple and shrewd enough, and as easy—and as difficult—to impose upon as children are. But I was glad Wootton would be our guide; being a true-bred rascal and coward myself, I know a good man when I see one—and he was the best.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.63, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Straight and steady

      At this Wootton lifted his unkempt head and looked at me, and I stopped dead. He was a ragged nobody—with eyes like clear blue lights, straight and steady. Then he glanced away—and I thought, don’t let this one go. It may be a picnic on the plains, but you’ll be none the worse with him along.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.60, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Daren't drink anything else

      Fifteen dollars a bottle they were charging for claret at the Planters’ Hotel in St Louis that year, and it was like drinking swamp-water when the mules have been by; I’ve tasted better in a London ladies’ club. But you daren’t drink anything else because of the cholera…

Flashman and the Redskins, p.54, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Half the art

      If half the art of survival is running, the other half is keeping a straight face. I can’t count the number of times my fate has depended on my response to some unexpected and abominable proposal—like the night Yakub Beg suggested I join a suicidal attempt to scupper some Russian ammunition ships, or Sapten’s jolly notion about swimming naked into a Gothic castle full of Bismark’s thugs, or Brooke’s command to me to lead a charge against a headhunter’s stockade. Jesu, the times we have seen.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.43, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Terrifying yearning

She looked at me with a truly terrifying yearning; I’d seen nothing like it since the doctors were putting the strait-jacket on my guvnor and whisking the brandy out of his reach.

Flashman and the Redskins, pp.42-43, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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AKA intoxicated

      Tight as Dick’s hatband, of course…

Flashman and the Redskins, p.37, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Hard lessons

      I remember thinking as I tapped on the front door, with him at my elbow, brushing his hat on his sleeve: how many poor devils have ever had a mad muderer teaching ‘em Latin in the environs of a leaping-academy in the middle of the night—and why me, of all men?

Flashman and the Redskins, pp.32-33, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Go with what you know

      “A bawd, eh?” says he, and bared his teeth. “Trust you to make for a brothel. Plura faciunt homines e consuetudine, quam e ration*, you dirty little rip.”

*Men do more from habit than from reason.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.32, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Teasing gorillas

      I wouldn’t feel sorry for Omomhundro at any time, least of all with two of his bullies pinioning me and blowing baccy juice in my face but I confess to a momentary pang just then, as though he’d passed the port to the right. For giving orders to J.C. Spring is simply one of the things that are never done; you’d be better teasing a mating gorilla.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.29, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Embarrassing little encounters

     You all know those embarrassing little encounters of course—the man you’ve borrowed money off, or the chap whose wife has flirted with you, or the people whose invitation you’ve forgotten, or the vulgarian who accosts you in public. Omohundro wasn’t quite like these, exactly— the last time we’d met I’d been stealing one of his slaves, and shots had been flying, and he’d been roaring after me with murder in his eye, while I’d been striking out for the Mississippi shore.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.27, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Mr Flashman's suspicion

…I had a suspicion that she’d sampled the marriage mutton elsewhere when my back was turned…

Flashman and the Redskins, p.24, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Beastly, stupid and helpless

I know the heathen, and their oppressors, pretty well, you see, and the folly of sitting smug in judgement years after, stuffed with piety and ignorance and book-learned bias. Humanity is beastly and stupid, aye, and helpless, and there’s an end to it. and that’s as true for Crazy Horse as it was for Custer…

Flashman and the Redskins, p.21, Pan Books edition, 1983.

Tags:Flashman, Flashman quotes, humanity.

Men in fear and rage

“What bleating breast-beaters like you can’t comprehend,” I went on at the top of my voice, while the toadies pawed at me and yapped for the porters, “is that when selfish frightened men—in other words, any men, red or white, civilized or savage—come face to face in the middle of a wilderness that both of ‘em want, the Lord alone knows why, then war breaks out, and the weaker go under. Policies don’t matter a spent piss—it’s the men in fear and rage and uncertainty watching the woods and skyline, d’you see, you purblind bookworm, you! And you burble about enlightenment, by God— ”

Flashman and the Redskins, p.20, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Keep your thumb out of it

      “Depends which ones you’re talking about,” says I. “Now, Spotted Tail was a gentleman. Chico Velasquez, on the other hand, was an evil vicious brute. But you probably never met either of ‘em. Care for a brandy?”
      He went pink. “I thank you, no. By gentlemen, I suppose,” he went on, bristling. “you mean one who has despaired to the point of submission, while brute would no doubt describe any sturdy independent patriot who resisted the injustice of an alien rule, or revolted against broken treaties—“
      “If sturdy independence consists of cutting off women’s fingers and fringing your buckskin with them, then Chico was a patriot, no error,” says I. “Mind you, that was the soft end of his behaviour. Hey waiter, another one, and keep your thumb out of it, d’ye hear?”

Flashman and the Redskins, pp.18-19, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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They're called food ethnographers these days

…I could see at a glance he was one of those snoopopathic meddlers who strut about with a fly-whisk, and a notebook, prodding lies out of the niggers* and over-tipping the dragoman on college funds.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.18, Pan Books edition, 1983.

*Flashman's use of racial epitahs is a continuing problem for more enlightened, contemporary readers. The inclusion of these passages should not be taken as tacit support of his misanthropic, 19th century view of race relations.



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My strongest suit

Still, it’s odd that I never got my tongue around it, for apart from fleeing and fornication, slinging the bat* is my strongest suit; well, I speak nine languages better than natives, and can rub along in another dozen or so.


*Speaking the local language (Brit. Army slang)

Flashman and the Redskins, p.17, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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A running tongue

I never did learn to speak Apache properly. Mind you, it ain’t easy, mainly because the red brutes seldom stand still long enough – and if you’ve any sense, you don’t either…

Flashman and the Redskins, p.17, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Gurgling consumption

…which seemed to please his highness, for he ordered up chocolate and we stood about sipping it from silver bowls, two-handed. (The Malagassies have no idea of quantity; there must have been a gallon of the sickly muck in each bowl, and the gurgling of the royal consumption was something to hear.)

Flashman's Lady, p.244, Pan edition, 1979.

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Flashman's steely nerves

      ‘Oh, Harry, do not move I pray! There is another of those natives quite close!’
      I turned my head and almost gave birth.

Flashman's Lady, p.294, Pan edition, 1979.

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The soldier’s first rule

I should have thought of the soldier’s first rule, to put yourself in the enemy’s shoes and ask what you would do.

Flashman's Lady, p.287, Pan edition, 1979.

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Flashman from the heart

      I thought of her finger, under that crushing boot, of the way she’d stood up in the bushes and walked straight out, of the bruising ride from Antan’, of all she’d endured since Singapore – and I didn’t feel ashamed, exactly, because you know it ain’t my line. But I felt my eyes sting, and I lifted her chin with my hand.
      ‘Old girl,’ says I, ‘you’re a trump.’

Flashman's Lady, p.284, Pan edition, 1979.

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