Burmese Days Quotes
"We Anglo-Indians could be almost bearable if we'd only admit that we're thieves and go on thieving without any humbug."
"All European food in Burma is more or less disgusting—the bread is spongy stuff leavened with palm-toddy and tasting like a penny bun gone wrong."
"The British Empire is simply a device for giving trade monopolies to the English—or rather to gangs of Jews and Scotchmen."
"In India it is in some way evil to spend a day without being once in a muck-sweat."
"He had not even the energy to read. Oh God, God, what to do with the rest of this bloody evening?"
"Work, prayer, books, drinking, talking—they are all powerless against it; it can only be sweated out through the pores of the skin."
"Pox Britannica, doctor, Pox Britannica is its proper name."
"He would never let anyone else serve Flory at table, or carry his gun or hold his pony's head while he mounted."
"The only Eastern races that have developed at all quickly are the independent ones."
"It's at the bottom of half our beastliness to the natives. We Anglo-Indians could be almost bearable if we'd only admit that we're thieves and go on thieving without any humbug."
"What shall it profit a man if he save his own soul and lose the whole world?"
"One should live with the stream of life, not against it."
"It is a corrupting thing to live one's real life in secret."
"Prestige, the breath of life, is itself nebulous."
"Painting is the only art that can be practised without either talent or hard work."
"It was so lovely after those two graceless years to breathe the air of wealth again."
"A civilization stretching back and back, practically the same, into times when we were dressed in woad."
"There's a touch of the diabolical in all Mongols."
"What a thing to happen, when they had been getting on so well together!"
"One gets not to notice that kind of thing in this country."
"But the whole expedition—the very notion of wanting to rub shoulders with all those smelly natives—had impressed her badly."
"She had thought him a manly man till this evening."
"When a girl's failed everywhere else she tries India."
"The civilized atmosphere of the Club, with the white faces all round her and the friendly look of the illustrated papers and the 'Bonzo' pictures, reassured her."
"How men can drink such compounds iss disgusting."
"Once in a thousand centuries two red-hot spears will meet in your heart."
"No sorrows are so bitter as those that are without a trace of nobility."
"Would not even you be proud of such an honour as that?"
"The most trivial scrap of information about shooting thrilled her."
"The only rule with this shooting in Burma is to hope for nothing."
"An animal may be five yards away and quite invisible."
"She loved Flory, really loved him, when he talked like this."
"If only he would always talk about shooting, instead of about books and Art and that mucky poetry!"
"She looked so splendidly manly, with his pagri-cloth shirt open at the throat, and his shorts and puttees and shooting boots!"
"The gods are just and of our pleasant vices make instruments to plague us."
"He exercised himself ceaselessly and brutally, rationed his drink and his cigarettes, slept on a camp bed and bathed in cold water."
"Horsemanship and physical fitness were the only gods he knew."
"They were young and their blood was fresh, and Verrall was too stoical and Elizabeth too happy to pay any attention to the climate."
"It is mistaken policy to offer social affronts to native officials of high standing."
"In twenty years I have never heard such insolence!"
"The pain was so great that he struck his fist against a tree."
"There is a humility about genuine love that is rather horrible."
"One does not accuse a white man; one has got to catch him in the act."
"Nothing was changed between them—they were neither less nor more intimate than they had been before."
"Surely, if he was going away, he must say something definite soon?"
"She could not question him—dared not even ask him whether he was really going; she could only wait for him to speak."
"Then one evening, without warning, he failed to turn up at the Club."
"Please God it would be a week at least before he went! If she rode with him four times more, or three times—even if it were only twice, all might yet be well."
"Her sole defence was to threaten that she would tell her aunt; happily he was too stupid to realize that she would never dare do it."
"Each woman's heart stirred, for this might be Verrall."
"Elizabeth looked forward to their next meeting with a hope that was almost painful."
"It was unthinkable that when he came, it would only be to say good-bye!"
"The two women went down to the Club each evening and sat there until quite late, listening for Verrall's footsteps outside while seeming not to listen; but he never appeared."
"Ellis, who understood the situation perfectly, watched Elizabeth with spiteful amusement."
"Thank God, there was a quarter of an hour yet. The train was not due to leave for another quarter of an hour. Thank God, at least, for this last chance of seeing him!"
"They arrived on the platform just in time to see the train draw out of the station and gather speed with a series of deafening snorts."
"It was a mistake, surely it was a mistake. He had written to her and the letter had gone astray."
"It could not be that he had meant to leave her without even saying good-bye!"
"When they were married, when they were married! What fun they would have together in this alien yet kindly land!"
"She hated him now for his birthmark. She had never known till this moment how dishonouring, how unforgivable a thing it was."
"It shall not be written on his tombstone that he committed suicide."
"All Englishmen are virtuous when they are dead."
"Flory's real epitaph was the remark, very occasionally uttered—for an Englishman who dies in Burma is so soon forgotten—'Flory? Oh yes, he was a dark chap, with a birthmark. He shot himself in Kyauktada in 1926. Over a girl, people said. Bloody fool.'"