Flashman on the March Quotes

“You never know what to expect on encountering royalty. I've seen 'em stark naked except for wings of peacock feathers (Empress of China), giggling drunk in the embrace of a wrestler (Maharani of the Punjab), voluptuously wrapped in wet silk (Queen of Madagascar), wafting to and fro on a swing (Rani of Jhansi), and tramping along looking like an out-of-work charwoman (our own gracious monarch).”
― George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman on the March

“As I said to Speedicut, it’s hell in the diplomatic.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman on the March

“just a decent resolve to do a government’s first duty: to protect its people, whatever the cost.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman on the March

“Sir Harry Paget Flashman—rake, fraud, bully, deserter, poltroon, liar, and one of the most celebrated gentleman-heroes of the Victorian age—”
― George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman on the March

“There’s a place called El Golea in the deep Sahara which they say is the hottest spot on earth, but I’ll put my money on Jedda—or anywhere else on the Red Sea for that matter. We sweltered for days, and the bosun won a bet from the Marines by frying an egg on the deck. The waterfront was a bedlam of boats, and the town itself was choked with a vast milling horde of pilgrims who turned it into a human ant-heap, with the heat and stench rising from it in choking waves which I’ll swear were visible above the famous white walls.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman on the March