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.

Nowhere to hide

      I’d never have done for the Navy. You may fool soldiers by holding aloof and looking martial, but Jack would have seen through me before we’d crossed the bar. That’s the hellish thing about life aboard ship — there’s nowhere to hide either your carcase or your nature.


Flashman on the March, p.17, Harper Collins, paperback edition 2005.


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A seasoned ruffian

…his baby son, Charlie, was a seasoned ruffian of twelve months who took to me at once, as children usually do, recognising in me a nature as unscrupulous as their own.

Flashman and the Redskins, p.195, Pan Books edition, 1983.

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Seeking sorrow and raving heroically

The terrible thing was that I remembered the battle very clearly, and my own incredible behaviour – I knew I’d gone bawling about like a Viking in drink, seeking sorrow and raving heroically in murderous rage, but I couldn’t for the life of me understand why. It had been utterly against nature, instinct and judgement – and I knew it hadn’t been booze, because I hadn’t had any, and anyway the liquor hadn’t been distilled that could make me oblivious of self-preservation. It appalled me, for what security does a right-thinking coward have, if he loses his sense of panic?

Flashman at the Charge, pp.281-2, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,viking, coward.

Never forget any injury

Never you mind; I know my own nature hasn’t changed in eighty years, so why should anyone else’s? And I never forget any injury – I’ve done too many of ’em.

Flashman at the Charge, p.134, Pan edition, 5th printing, 1979.

Tags:
Flashman, Flashman quotes,injury, nature.