Saki Quotes (58 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

"The Achievement of the Cat"
The Square Egg (1924)
Context: The animal which the Egyptians worshipped as divine, which the Romans venerated as a symbol of liberty, which Europeans in the ignorant Middle Ages anathematised as an agent of demonology, has displayed to all ages two closely blended characteristics — courage and self-respect. No matter how unfavourable the circumstances, both qualities are always to the fore. 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. And disassociate the luxury-loving cat from the atmosphere of social comfort in which it usually contrives to move, and observe it critically under the adverse conditions of civilisation — that civilisation which can impel a man to the degradation of clothing himself in tawdry ribald garments and capering mountebank dances in the streets for the earning of the few coins that keep him on the respectable, or non-criminal, side of society. The cat of the slums and alleys, starved, outcast, harried, still keeps amid the prowlings of its adversity the bold, free, panther-tread with which it paced of yore the temple courts of Thebes, still displays the self-reliant watchfulness which man has never taught it to lay aside.

Cats

“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.”

Saki

“Mother, may I go and maffick,
Tear around and hinder traffic?”

Saki

"Reginald's Peace Poem"
Reginald (1904)

Tear

Saki Quotes

“Women and elephants never forget an injury.”

Saki

"Reginald on Besetting Sins"
Reginald (1904)

Women , Forgetting

“Children are given us to discourage our better emotions.”

Saki

"Reginald on Besetting Sins"
Reginald (1904)

Children

“I came here to get freedom from the inane interruptions of the mentally deficient, but it seems I asked too much of fate.”

Saki The Chronicles of Clovis

"The Recessional"
The Chronicles of Clovis (1911)

Fate , Freedom

“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.”

Saki

"Cross Currents"
Reginald in Russia (1910)

Death

“Poverty keeps together more homes than it breaks up.”

Saki The Chronicles of Clovis

"Esmé"
The Chronicles of Clovis (1911)

Home

“And the sleeper, eye unlidding,
Heard a voice for ever bidding
Much farewell to Dolly Gray;
Turning weary on his truckle-
Bed he heard the honey-suckle
Lauded in apiarian lay.”

Saki

"Reginald's Peace Poem"
Reginald (1904)

“The Western custom of one wife and hardly any mistress.”

Saki

"A Young Turkish Catastrophe"
Reginald in Russia (1910)

“Reginald, in his way, was a pioneer.
None of the rest of his family had anything approaching Titian hair or a sense of humour, and they used primroses as a table decoration.
It follows that they never understood Reginald, who came down late to breakfast, and nibbled toast, and said disrespectful things about the universe. The family ate porridge, and believed in everything, even the weather forecast.”

Saki

"Reginald's Choir Treat"
Reginald (1904)

Family , Way , Sense , Universe

“I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.”

Saki

The Unbearable Bassington http://books.google.com/books?id=xOXizk60YroC&q="I'm+living+so+far+beyond+my+income+that+we+may+almost+be+said+to+be+living+apart"&pg=PA59#v=onepage (1912)

“The revenge of an elder sister may be long in coming, but, like a South-Eastern express, it arrives in its own good time.”

Saki

"Reginald on Besetting Sins"
Reginald (1904)

Revenge , Sister , Time

“It occurred to me that I would like to be a poet. The chief qualification, I understand is that you must be born. Well, I hunted up my birth certificate, and found that I was all right on that score.”

Saki

"Reginald's Rubaiyat"
Reginald (1904)

Birth , Understanding

“Sredni Vashtar went forth,
His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white.
His enemies called for peace, but he brought them death.
Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful.”

Saki The Chronicles of Clovis

"Sredni Vashtar"
The Chronicles of Clovis (1911)

Death , Peace , Beauty

“Temptations came to him, in middle age, tentatively and without insistence, like a neglected butcher-boy who asks for a Christmas box in February for no more hopeful reason than that he didn't get one in December.”

Saki

"The Reticence of Lady Anne"
Reginald in Russia (1910)

Age , Hope , Boy , Christmas

“I love Americans, but not when they try to talk French. What a blessing it is that they never try to talk English.”

Saki The Chronicles of Clovis

"Adrian"
The Chronicles of Clovis (1911)

Love

“Put that bloody cigarette out!”

Saki

His last words, before being shot by a German sniper who'd heard the remark, as reported in The Square Egg (1924), p. 102

“Romance at short notice was her speciality.”

Saki book Beasts and Super-Beasts

"The Open Window"
Beasts and Super-Beasts (1914)

“To have reached thirty," said Reginald, "is to have failed in life.”

Saki

"Reginald on the Academy"
Reginald (1904)

Life

“Mrs. Troyle paused again, with the self-applauding air of one who has detected an asp lurking in an apple-charlotte.”

Saki The Chronicles of Clovis

"The Secret Sin of Septimus Brope"
The Chronicles of Clovis (1911)

“You needn't tell me that a man who doesn't love oysters and asparagus and good wines has got a soul, or a stomach either. He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed.”

Saki The Chronicles of Clovis

"The Match-Maker"
The Chronicles of Clovis (1911)

Love , Soul , Wine

“A beautifully constructed borsch, such as you are going to experience presently, ought not only to banish conversation but almost to annihilate thought.”

Saki book Beasts and Super-Beasts

"The Blind Spot"
Beasts and Super-Beasts (1914)

“Madame was not best pleased at being contradicted on a professional matter, and when Madame lost her temper you usually found it afterwards in the bill.”

Saki

"Reginald on Besetting Sins"
Reginald (1904)

“His socks compelled one's attention without losing one's respect.”

Saki The Chronicles of Clovis

"Ministers of Grace"
The Chronicles of Clovis (1911)

“Reginald sat in a corner of the Princess's salon and tried to forgive the furniture, which started out with an obvious intention of being Louis Quinze, but relapsed at frequent intervals into Wilhelm II.”

Saki

"Reginald in Russia"
Reginald in Russia (1910)

Forgiveness , Princess

“Which reminds me of the man I read of in some sacred book who was given a choice of what he most desired. And because he didn't ask for titles and honours and dignities, but only for immense wealth, these other things came to him also."
"I am sure you didn't read about him in any sacred book."
"Yes; I fancy you will find him in Debrett.”

Saki

"Reginald at the Theatre"
Reginald (1904)

Books , Reading , Wealth

“Sophie Chattel-Monkheim was a Socialist by conviction and a Chattel-Monkheim by marriage.”

Saki book Beasts and Super-Beasts

"The Byzantine Omelette"
Beasts and Super-Beasts (1914)

Marriage

“To die before being painted by Sargent is to go to Heaven prematurely.”

Saki

"Reginald on the Academy"
Reginald (1904)

Painting

“I found everyone talking nervously and feverishly of the weather and the war in South Africa, except Reginald, who was reclining in a comfortable chair with the dreamy, far-away look that a volcano might wear just after it had desolated entire villages.”

Saki

"Reginald"
Reginald (1904)

War , Weather

“We all know that Prime Ministers are wedded to the truth, but like other married couples they sometimes live apart.”

Saki

The Unbearable Bassington (1912), Ch. 13

Truth , Wedding

“Cyprian was a boy who carried with him through early life the wondering look of a dreamer, the eyes of one who sees things that are not visible to ordinary mortals, and invests the commonplace things of this world with qualities unsuspected by plainer folk – the eyes of a poet or a house agent.”

Saki book Beasts and Super-Beasts

"The Dreamer"
Beasts and Super-Beasts (1914)

Life , World , Boy , Housing

“You evidently feel that brevity is the soul of widowhood.”

Saki The Chronicles of Clovis

"The Match Maker"
The Chronicles of Clovis (1911)

Feeling , Soul

“The sacrifices of friendship were beautiful in her eyes as long as she was not asked to make them.”

Saki book Beasts and Super-Beasts

"Fur"
Beasts and Super-Beasts (1914)

Friendship , Beauty

“Eleanor hated boys, and she would have liked to have whipped this one long and often. It was perhaps the yearning of a woman who had no children of her own.”

Saki The Chronicles of Clovis

"The Jesting of Arlington Stringham"
The Chronicles of Clovis (1911)

Hate , Children , Boy

“It is an admitted fact that the ordinary tomtit of commerce has a sounder aesthetic taste than the average female relative in the country.”

Saki

"Reginald on Christmas Presents"
Reginald (1904)

Country

“I always say beauty is only sin deep.”

Saki

"Reginald's Choir Treat"
Reginald (1904)

Beauty

“Reginald in his wildest lapses into veracity never admits to being more than twenty-two.”

Saki

"Reginald"
Reginald (1904)

“A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.”

Saki

" Clovis on the Alleged Romance of Business http://books.google.com/books?id=aU_sxUxGtE0C&q=%22A+little+inaccuracy+sometimes+saves+tons+of+explanation%22&pg=PA560#v=onepage"
The Square Egg (1924)

“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.”

Saki

" The Baker's Dozen http://books.google.com/books?id=T64eeKXfGfUC&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"&pg=PA196#v=onepage"
Reginald in Russia (1910)

Education , School , Boy

“I might have been a goldfish in a glass bowl for all the privacy I got.”

Saki

"The Innocence of Reginald"
Reginald (1904)