The Smiler With the Knife Quotes

“Like the first symptoms of a plague, ugly incidents began to break out sporadically over the country; a riot here, an attempted assassination or unexplained piece of sabotage there, sudden panics on the Stock Exchange, hints and rumours flawing the calm surface of English life. Public opinion was bewildered and growing resentful... This inarticulate resentment was cleverly exploited by the E.B., whose policy was, by constantly embarrassing the present government, to discredit the principle of parliamentary government altogether.”
― Nicholas Blake, The Smiler With the Knife

“Major Keston is a man with a grudge and considerable organizing talent. As you know, he was politely sacked from the Indian Police. He's just the kind of material the big people in this movement can use. Don't underestimate him and his like. They're probably quite sincere. Nothing easier than to turn a personal grievance the other way up and see it as patriotism.”
― Nicholas Blake, The Smiler With the Knife

“Each man’s morality, thought Georgia, is a compromise between the strength of his character and the strength of his environment. Where you have no character to fix the ratio, you get the genius and the lunatic, to whom morality is meaningless.”
― Nicholas Blake, The Smiler with the Knife