Saki (Hector Hugh Munro)

(1870-14 November 1916)

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From the Archives of Sir Hans (Need a More Impressive Title!)

Sir Hans

dok@fwi.uva.nl


The quotations


@Q: Hating anything in the way of ill-natured gossip ourselves, we are
always grateful to those who do it for us and do it well.

@Q: A buzz of recognition came from the front rows of the pit, together
with a craning of necks on the parts of those in less favoured seats.  It
heralded the arrival of Sherard Blaw, the dramatist who had discovered
himself, and who had given so ungrudgingly of his discovery to the world.
@R: _The Unbearable Bassington_ (1912) ch. 13

@Q: A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
@R: _The Square Egg_ (1924) `Clovis on the Alledged Romance of Business'

@Q: A woman whose dresses are made in Paris and whose marriage has been
made in heaven might be equally biased for and against free imports.
@R: _The Unbearable Bassington_ (1912) ch. 9

@Q: All decent people live beyond their income nowadays, and those who
aren't respectable live beyond other peoples'.  A few gifted individuals
manage to do both.
@R: _The Chronicles of Clovis_ (1911) `The Match-Maker'

@Q: But, good gracious, you've got to educate him first.  You can't expect
a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school.
@R: _Reginald in Russia_ (1910) `The Baker's Dozen'

@Q: By insisting on having your bottle pointing to the north when the cork
is being drawn, and calling the waiter Max, you may induce an impression on
your guests which hours of laboured noasting might be powerless to
achieve.  For this purpose, however, the guests must be chosen as carefully
as the wine.
@R: _The Chronicles of Clovis_ (1911) `The Chaplet'

@Q: Children with Hyacinth's temperament don't know better as they grow
older; they merely know more.
@R: _Toys of Peace and Other Papers_ (1919) `Hyacinth'

@Q: Confront a child, a puppy, and a kitten with a sudden danger; the child
will turn instinctively for assistance, the puppy will grovel in abject
submission to the impending visitation, the kitten will brace its tiny body
for a frantic resistance.
@R: _The Square Egg_ (1924) `The Achievement of the Cat'
@K: animals:cats

@Q: Even the Hooligan was probably invented in China centuries before we
thought of him.
@R: _Reginald_ (1904) `Reginald on House-Parties'

@Q: Every reformation must have it's victims.  You can't expect the fatted
calf to share the enthousiasm over the prodigal's return.
@R: _Reginald_ (1904) `Reginald on the Academy'

@Q: He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed.
@R: _The Chronicles of Clovis_ (1911) `The Match-Maker'

@Q: Her frocks are built in Paris, but she wears them with a strong English
accent.
@R: _Reginald_ (1904) `Reginald on Worries'

@Q: His `Noontide Peace', a study of two dun cows under a walnut tree, was
followed by `A Mid-Day Sanctuary', a study of a walnut tree with two dun
cows under it.
@R: _Beasts and Super-Beasts_ (1914) `The Stalled Ox'

@Q: His socks compelled one's attention without losing one's respect.
@R: _The Chronicles of Clovis_ (1911) ``Ministers of Grace''

@Q: I always say beauty is only sin deep.
@R: _Reginald_ (1904) `Reginald's Choir Treat'

@Q: I might have been a gold-fish in a glass bowl for all the privacy I
got.
@R: _Reginald_ (1904) `The Innocence of Reginald'

@Q: I should be the last person to say anything against temptation,
naturally, but we have a proverb down here `in baiting a mouse-trap with
cheese, always leave room for the mouse'.
@R: _The Square Egg_ (1924) `The Infernal Parliament'

@Q: I think she must have been very strictly brought up, she's so
desperately anxious to do the wrong thing correctly.
@R: _Reginald_ (1904) `Reginald on Worries'

@Q: It is one of the consolations of middle-aged reformers that the good
they incalculate must live after them if it is to live at all.
@R: _Beasts and Super-Beasts_ (1914) `The Byzantine Omelette'
@K: recompense

@Q: People may say what they like about the dacay of Christianity; the
religious system that produced green Chartreuse can never really die.
@R: _Reginald_ (1904) `Reginald on Christmas presents'

@Q: The Young Turkish candidate, who had conformed to the Western custom of
one wife and hardly any mistresses, stood by helplessly while his
adversary's poll swelled to a triumphant majority.
@R: _Reginald in Russia_ (1910) `A Young Turkish Catastrophe'

@Q: The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as good cooks go, she went.
@R: _Reginald_ (1904) `Reginald on Besetting Sins'

@Q: The death of John Pennington had left his widow in circumstances which
were more straitened than ever, and the park had receded even from her
notepaper, where it had long been retained as a courtesy title on the
principle that addresses are given to us to conceal our whereabouts.
@R: _Reginald in Russia_ (1910) `Cross Currents'

@Q: The people of Crete unfortunately make more history than they can
consume locally.
@R: _The Chronicles of Clovis_ (1911) `The Jesting of Arlington Stringham'

@Q: The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have
reminiscences of what never happened.
@R: _Reginald_ (1904) `Reginald at the Carlton'

@Q: There may have been disillusionments in the lives of the medieval
saints, but they would scarcely have been better pleased if they could have
forseen that their names would be associated nowadays with racehorses and
the cheaper clarets.
@R: _Reginald_ (1904) `Reginald at the Carlton'

@Q: This story has no moral.  If it points out an evil, at any rate it
suggests no remedy.
@R: _The Unbearable Bassington_ (1912) author's note

@Q: To say that anything was a quotation was an excellent method, in
Eleanor's eyes, for withdrawing it from discussion, just as you could
always defend indifferent lamb late in the season by saying `It's mutton.'
@R: _The Chronicles of Clovis_ (1911) `The Jesting of Arlington Stringham'

@Q: Women and elephants never forget an injury.
@R: _Reginald_ (1904) `Reginald on Besetting Sins'

@Q: `But why should you want to shield him?' cried Egbert; `the man is a
common murderer.'  `A common murderer, possibly, but a very uncommon cook.'
@R: _Beasts and Super-Beasts_ (1914) `The Blind Spot'

@Q: `I believe I take precedence,' he said coldly: `you are merely the club
Bore: I am the club Liar.'
@R: _Beasts and Super-Beasts_ (1914) `A Defensive Diamond'

@Q: `I think oysters are more beautiful than any religion,' he resumed
presently.  `They not only forgive our unkindness to them; they justify it,
they incite us to go on being perfectly horrid to them.  Once they arrive
at the supper-table they seem to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the
thing.  There's nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the
sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster.'
@R: _The Chronicles of Clovis_ (1911) `The Match-Maker'

@Q: `Never,' wrote Reginald to his most darling friend, `be a pioneer.
It's the Early Christian that gets the fattest lion.'
@R: _Reginald_ (1904) `Reginald's Choir Treat'

@Q: `Some one has observed that Providence is always on the side of the big
dividends,' remarked Reginald.
    The Duchess ate her anchovy in a shocked manner, she was sufficiently
old-fashioned to dislike irreverence towards dividends.
@R: _Reginald_ (1904) `Reginald at the Carlton'

@Q: `To have reached thirty,' said Reginald, `is to have failed in life.'
@R: _Reginald_ (1904) `Reginald on the Academy'

@Q: `Waldo is one of those people who would be enormously improved by
death,' said Clovis.
@R: _Beasts and Super-Beasts_ (1914) `The Feast of Nemesis'
@K: death

@Q: Put that bloody cigarette out.
@%: Just before being killed by a sniper, 14 November 1916
@K: Famous Last Words

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 _     _               _________________________Hans_van_Dok_dok@fwi.uva.nl_ 
(_  . |_)  |_|    |\| (_  Null graphs are not very interesting.             )
__) | | \  | | (| | | __)                                     -- R. Wilson /
>>AND ATOMS WILL NUCLEOSYNTHESIZE FOREVER AND EVER.  ATOMPLUTONIUM! -- LP<<

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