“If anything she was a shade too plump, but she knew the ninety-seven ways of making love that the Hindus are supposed to set much store by―though mind you, it is all nonsense, for the seventy-fourth position turns out to be the same as the seventy-third, but with your fingers crossed.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, quote from Flashman
“I recognized the handwriting, and my heart gave a skip; when I opened it I got a turn, for it began, 'To my beloved Hector,' and I thought, by God she's cheating on me, and has sent me the wrong letter by mistake. But in the second line was a reference to Achilles, and another to Ajax, so I understood she was just addressing me in terms which she accounted fitting for a martial paladin; she knew no better. It was a common custom at that time, in the more romantic females, to see their soldier husbands and sweethearts as Greek heroes, instead of the whore-mongering, drunken clowns most of them were. However, the Greek heroes were probably no better, so it was not far off the mark.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, quote from Flashman
“Now, look you here, Sekundar," says I, but he came up straight like a little bantam and cut me off.
"Sir Alexander. if you please," says he icily, as though I’d never seen him with his breeches down, chasing after some big Afghan bint.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, quote from Flashman
“This myth called bravery, which is half-panic, half-lunacy (in my case, all panic), pays for all; in England you can’t be a hero and bad. There’s practically a law against it.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, quote from Flashman
“We stood there for a full half hour, like so many scarecrows, while they jeered at us from a distance, and one or two of us were shot down.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, quote from Flashman
“But I still state unhesitatingly, that for pure, vacillating stupidity, for superb incompetence to command, for ignorance combined with bad judgment --in short, for the true talent for catastrophe -- Elphy Bey stood alone. Others abide our question, but Elphy outshines them all as the greatest military idiot of our own or any other day.
Only he could have permitted the First Afghan War and let it develop to such ruinous defeat. It was not easy: he started with a good army, a secure position, some excellent officers, a disorganized enemy, and repeated opportunities to save the situation. But Elphy, with the touch of true genius, swept aside these obstacles with unerring precision, and out of order wrought complete chaos. We shall not, with luck, look upon his like again.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, quote from Flashman
“You are a sorry creature, Flashman. I have failed in you. But even to you I must say, this is not the end. You cannot continue here, but you are young, Flashman, and there is time yet. Though your sins be as red as crimson, yet shall they be as white as snow. You have fallen very low, but you can be raised up again …”
― George MacDonald Fraser, quote from Flashman
“In her, ignorance and stupidity formed a perfect shield against the world: this, I suppose, is innocence. It”
― George MacDonald Fraser, quote from Flashman
George MacDonald Fraser
Born place: in Carlisle, The United Kingdom
Born date April 2, 1925
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“I was just going to stand here and watch it happen. I wasn’t going to say a fucking thing. Why? Because what did it matter? What did any of it matter?”
― Joe Meno, quote from Hairstyles of the Damned
“Nor did I grasp the capacity of love's absence to destroy, that my lack of love for myself made my own life unbearable. You take someone whose life experiences have taught them they're worthless, string them out on drugs, and you have one miserable person. How could I have given what I didn't have? It's hard to value another life when you view your own as dispensable, hard to understand how you can have so great an effect on someone else when you don't think you matter.”
― quote from Comeback: A Mother and Daughter's Journey Through Hell and Back
“But as he stood at the brink of that decision, into the vacuum created by that shimmering lure of escape returned his primal conviction that when confronted by authentic evil—and he felt certain this is what pursued him—to move off one’s ground without a fight was an equal if not greater evil. An evil of failure and cowardice. One might pass a lifetime, or an endless string of lifetimes, without ever facing such an unequivocal assault as this against the covenant of what a man holds true about himself. Better to lose your life in defense of its sanctity than to turn tail and live out what remained of one’s allotted days as a beaten dog. It was a hollow refuge that gave no shelter from self-loathing.”
― quote from The List of Seven
“He’s dreaming, Cloquet thought, as he stood over him, revolver in hand. He’s dreaming, and I exist in reality. Cloquet hated reality but realized it was still the only place to get a good steak.”
― Woody Allen, quote from Side Effects
“She knows about men, knows a good deal of the world's character. But it is hard, whatever you have endured, to give up on love. Hard to stop thinking of it as a home you might one day find again. More than hard.”
― Andrew Miller, quote from Pure
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AgaatBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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