Featherweight Quotes

“His circle of friends were as all rich and, largely, idle as he, and they cultivated a foppish effeminacy of dress and manners, which they took delight in subverting by their quickness to combat and fisticuffs.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“I do not, Annie. Nor do I care to have one. I believe I shall not marry, for it binds a woman so and I have plans for my life. And I certainly would not care to be fawned over by someone as tedious as Mr McLean, handsome or not.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“On the contrary. I believe I should like to talk with Miss Annie Perry. I should like to find out what it is about her that holds my daughters in such thrall that they disobey their father and put themselves at risk. That is, if the child has not been arrested and thrown into gaol along with her notorious father.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“And there shoulda bin a lesson, but where I shoulda steadied myself and got my rhythm back, I got a hot flash of temper and seen the red as she hit me, thinking, you’re gonna bleed, ya bitch! And when you see the red, you don’t think and you don’t read.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“In Annie’s bedchamber Tommy could hear the chatter and roar of the crowd and it grew too much for him to simply listen. He wanted to see his little sister doing as his father had done and he wanted to be there if she needed protection.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“I am the famous Miss Stych from Brum and I’ve come to skin the gypo bitch. Put yer money on me, lads, and I’ll not let you down.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“He said in America it dint matter if you was a gypsy or Irish or a Scotchman, or the poorest miner or nailer, you got a chance to better yourself, and in California there was gold in the hills for the taking.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“fact, the doctor told him, the way the Lord had made this world meant that there could be no good without evil, there could be no gain without loss, and no healing without pain.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“Annie, we should show respect and deference to those who deserve and earn our respect. I do not believe we should simply defer and belittle ourselves to a person simply because of the station they have been allotted in life. A station allotted by man, not God. Simply because a man has inherited wealth and land and position it does not follow that he is worthy of unquestioning respect. In the eyes of God we are all equal and we are all worthy of equal respect.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“And you think I must’ve said something to rattle his balls. Why? Because I’m a stupid gypo who lives in an alehouse?”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“your church for making it possible for a poor child like me to have the gift of reading and writing which has opened my eyes to the glories of God in this world where there is so much wickedness and want.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“He is a very interesting fellow, Judith, and a first-rate mathematician. He is to be company for me, my dear girl. I do sometimes feel the need for a little communion with gentlemen, living as I do in the midst of ladies.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“He is a monstrous man, Father. His land and riches are all wrenched from the poor who labour in his infernal mines . . . It is the least he owes them to educate their children.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“Rich fine people know they can just touch yer when they want, because, to him, me and Jem were just like horses or dogs. And the three of them chuckled so at their fancy saying, though I had not one clue what they were on about.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“Janey had told me this was how Romis fought, slow and circling and not making any move for ages. They called it ‘charming’ and they were looking to mesmerise you like they did with snakes in India.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“Ask yourself: do you have their speed? Their light-footed bravado? Their honed and refined martial instinct? . . . Ask yourself . . .”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“And I said, ‘So have you, Miss Esther. Your mammy died, mine just sold us.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“Bill had him by the throat for that, and Paddy spluttered that whatever I wore would be respectable and he would guarantee everything was proper.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“Where are the hordes of poor ignorant wretches my money is being used to better?”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“said, ‘I’m a gypo, Jem. We can all fight – and tek money off ya.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“Looking at his face, I got the memory of him. He was the cheeky bleeder at the Tipton livery who called me a gypo when I first come to the port with Bill and the Gaffer.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“And Jem knew of Bill Perry from his days in the livery yard at Tipton Port before he came to the Bilston yard. And he knew what was said of him now. Paddy said he was old and broken with drink but, ‘I still wouldn’t put meself on his wrong side if I didn’t need to. Bill Perry was the best of all the old pugilists. But I hear he is a sorry sight these days.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“Imagine, Annie . . . learning is the gateway to a new life in our Lord Jesus. That is why all poor children must come and hear the Word and learn to read it.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“Janey, for all her foul mouth and burn-scarred hands, was a lady as far as Bill was concerned and she was devoted to Annie, who she still coached and trained in the backyard on summer evenings.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“I’ll learn you fisty and then we’ll go and get em. A wench is only safe in this life if she takes her revenge and everybody knows it.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“He said women who fought were the roughest old gorgers and whores an all.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“Now, ladies, do not squirm and do not squeal when these man mountains meet – for there will be blood, there will be cuts and wounds and bruising, but do not forget the nobility of this art of pugilism.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“Hadn’t he been to London, and once fought for a prize on the frozen River Thames before a crowd of lords and ladies and fine gentlemen on a bed of coal ash as snow tumbled? He fought a Jew called Mendoza and their blood froze pink as a dog rose on the ice.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“You tell em this, fine lad. I aint done. And I aint finished and that Irish pig will know he’s met the Slasher soon enough. And tell his lordship he might as well piss on his fifty pound.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight

“He stood six feet four inches and his chest was broad and round as an oak tun, his shoulders like the great limbs of an old tree.”
― Mick Kitson, Featherweight