Saki: Trending quotes

“The fashion just now is a Roman Catholic frame of mind with an Agnostic conscience: you get the mediaeval picturesqueness of the one with the modern conveniences of the other.”

Saki

"Reginald at the Theatre"
Reginald (1904)

Fashion

“You can't expect the fatted calf to share the enthusiasm of the angels over the prodigal's return.”

Saki

"Reginald on the Academy"
Reginald (1904)

Angels

“To be among people who are smothered in furs when one hasn't any oneself makes one want to break most of the Commandments.”

Saki book Beasts and Super-Beasts

"Fur"
Beasts and Super-Beasts (1914)

People

“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.”

Saki

"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

"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.

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

Saki

"Reginald's Peace Poem"
Reginald (1904)

Tear

“The people of Crete unfortunately make more history than they can consume locally.”

Saki The Chronicles of Clovis

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

People , History

“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 boasting might be powerless to achieve. For this purpose, however, the guests must be chosen as carefully as the wine.”

Saki The Chronicles of Clovis

"The Chaplet"
The Chronicles of Clovis (1911)

Wine

“The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go she went.”

Saki

"Reginald on Besetting Sins"
Reginald (1904)

Cooking

“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