George MacDonald Fraser Quotes & Sayings

I'm rather a cynic, I suppose. I do not believe in the niceness of humanity. — George MacDonald Fraser

I know my Easts and Tom Brown, you see, and they're never happy unless their morality is being tried in the furnace and they can feel they are doing the right Christian thing and never mind the consequences to anyone else. — George MacDonald Fraser

There's a point, you know, where treachery is so complete and unashamed that it becomes statesmanship. — George MacDonald Fraser

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

Looking back over sixty-odd years, life is like a piece of string with knots in it, the knots being those moments that live in the mind forever, and the intervals being hazy, half-recalled times when I have a fair idea of what was happenng, in a general way, but cannot be sure of dates or places or even the exact order in which events took place. — George MacDonald Fraser

Political correctness is about denial, usually in the weasel circumlocutory jargon which distorts and evades and seldom stands up to honest analysis. — George MacDonald Fraser

I loathe all political parties, which I regard as inventions of the devil. My favourite prime minister was Sir Alec Douglas-Home, not because he was on the Right, but because he spent a year in office without, on his own admission, doing a damned thing. — George MacDonald Fraser

. . . what is thought now, and held to be universal truth, was not thought then, or true of that time. — George MacDonald Fraser

Tony Blair is not just the worst prime minister we've ever had, but by far the worst prime minister we've ever had. It makes my blood boil to think of the British soldiers who've died for that little liar. — George MacDonald Fraser

In her, ignorance and stupidity formed a perfect shield against the world: this, I suppose, is innocence. It — George MacDonald Fraser

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

Courage - and shuffle the cards. — George MacDonald Fraser

What is overlooked is the astonishing amount of history Hollywood has got right ... For better or worse, nothing has been more influential in shaping our visions of the past than the commercial cinema. — George MacDonald Fraser

the English general was less concerned for the moment with what he was going to do in Scotland than with the problem of actually getting his army there in working order. His main worry was a shortage of beer for the troops; on September 2 he was indenting for "vi or vii hundred tonne of bere", five days later he was noting that "I feare lak of no thyng so moche as of drynk", and this despite the brewing that was taking place at Berwick, and on September 11 he was announcing flatly that he could not hope to get his army to Edinburgh without beer. Like — George MacDonald Fraser

Now Malcolm was back again, but he came once too often, and was killed at Alnwick in 1093. — George MacDonald Fraser

I've been a Danish prince, a Texas slave-dealer, an Arab sheik, a Cheyenne Dog Soldier, and a Yankee navy lieutenant in my time, among other things, and none of 'em was as hard to sustain as my lifetime's impersonation of a British officer and gentleman. — George MacDonald Fraser

It was part of war; men died, more would die, that was past, and what mattered now was the business in hand; those who lived would get on with it. Whatever sorrow was felt, there was no point in talking or brooding about it, much less in making, for form's sake, a parade of it. Better and healthier to forget it, and look to tomorrow.
The celebrated British stiff upper lip, the resolve to conceal emotion which is not only embarrassing and useless, but harmful, is just plain commons sense — George MacDonald Fraser

The two pillars of 'political correctness' are, a) willful ignorance, and b) a steadfast refusal to face the truth. — George MacDonald Fraser

As I said to Speedicut, it's hell in the diplomatic. — George MacDonald Fraser

I should have known better, of course. Whenever I'm feeling up to the mark and congratulating myself, some fearful fate trips me headlong, and I find myself haring for cover with my guts churning and Nemesis in full cry after me. — George MacDonald Fraser

Elgin himself looked ten years younger, now that he'd cast the die, but I thought exuberance had got the better of him when he strode into the saloon later, threw The Origin of Species on the table and announced:
"It's very original, no doubt, but not for a hot evening. What I need is some trollop."
I couldn't believe my ears, and him a church-goer, too. "Well, my lord, I dunno," says I. "Tientsin ain't much of a place, but I'll see what I can drum up - "
"Michel's been reading Doctor Thorne since Taku," cried he. "He must have finished it by now, surely! Ask him, Flashman, will you?" So I did, and had my ignorance, enlightened. — George MacDonald Fraser

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

And suddenly, without the slightest volition on my part, there was the most crashing discharge of wind, like the report of a mortar. My horse started; Cardigan jumped in his saddle, glaring at me ... Be Silent! snaps he, and he must have been in a highly nervous condition himself, otherwise he would never have added, in a hoarse whipser: Can you not contain yourself, you disgusting fellow?
Flashman at the start of the Charge of the Light Brigade. — George MacDonald Fraser

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

I think little of people who will deny their history because it doesn't present the picture they would like. — George MacDonald Fraser

Here I was alone, and could take my own time. In other parts of the world one always seems to be in a great hurry, tearing from one spot to the other at a gallop, but out yonder, perhaps because distances are so great, time don't seem to matter; you can jog along, breathing fresh air and enjoying the scenery and your own thoughts about women and home and hunting and booze and money and what may lie over the next hill. — George MacDonald Fraser

And it was understood that Scottish Borderers did not take kindly to outside Wardens. The oustanding example was the unfortunate Frenchman, Anthony Darcy, the Sieur de la Bastie, who in 1516 was ill-advised enough to accept the Wardenry of all the Scottish Marches, with particular responsibility in the east. This was Hume country, and they regarded Darcy with "horrid resentment". He seems to have been a brave, honest and conscientious Warden, which no doubt rendered him all the more odious. The outcome was that the Humes finally caught up with him near Duns, cut off his head, and took it home in triumph, tied by its long locks to a saddle-bow. — George MacDonald Fraser

I'd have found it amusing enough, I dare say, if I hadn't been irritated by the thought that these irresponsible Christian zealots were only making things harder for the Army and Company, who had important work to do. It was all so foolish and unnecessary - the heathen creeds, for all their nonsensical mumbo-jumbo, were as good as any for keeping the rabble in order, and what else is religion for? In — George MacDonald Fraser

The advantage to being a wicked bastard is that everyone pesters the Lord on your behalf; if volume of prayers from my saintly enemies means anything, I'll be saved when the Archbishop of Canterbury is damned. It's a comforting thought. — George MacDonald Fraser

It may be tripe, but it's my tripe - and I do urge other authors to resist encroachments on their brain-children and trust their own judgment rather than that of some zealous meddler with a diploma in creative punctuation who is just dying to get into the act. — George MacDonald Fraser

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

I'm as religious as the next man - which is to say I'll keep in with the local parson for form's sake and read the lessons on feast-days because my tenants expect it, but I've never been fool enough to confuse religion with belief in God. That's where so many clergymen ... go wrong — George MacDonald Fraser