Saki Quotes
Saki delivers sharp, witty takes on absurdity and everyday annoyance.
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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.
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I came here to get freedom from the inane interruptions of the mentally deficient, but it seems I asked too much of fate.
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A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation
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The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and, as cooks go, she went.
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“In spite of everything that proverbs may say, poverty keeps together more homes than it breaks up.”
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“For a boy who went out to it from the dulness of some country rectory, from a neighbourhood where a flower show and a cricket match formed the social landmarks of the year, the feeling of exile might not be very crushing, might indeed be lost in the sense of change and adventure.”
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“I did it—I who should have known better. I persuaded Reginald to go to the McKillops’ garden-party against his will. We all make mistakes occasionally.”
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“Even the hooligan was probably invented in China centuries before we thought of him.”
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“Publishers always clamour for the books that no one has ever written, and turn a cold shoulder on them as soon as they're written. If St Paul were living now they would pester him to write an Epistle to the Esquimaux, but no London publisher would dream of reading his Epistle to the Ephesians.”
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“The young have aspirations that never comes to pass,the old have reminiscences of what never happened. It's only the middle-aged who are really conscious of their limitations - that is why one should be patient with them. But one never is.”
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“Romance at short notice was her specialty.”
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“Never,” wrote Reginald to his most darling friend, “be a pioneer. It's the Early Christian that gets the fattest lion.”
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“Pluralism is a merciful narcotic.”
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“how unfortunate that we should have had that very cold weather at a time when coal was so dear! So distressing for the poor.” “Someone has observed that Providence is always on the side of the big dividends,” remarked Reginald.”
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“There is no outlet for demonstrating your feelings towards people whom you simply loathe. That is really the crying need of our modern civilisation. Just think how jolly it would be if a recognised day were set apart for the paying off of old scores and grudges, a day when one could lay oneself out to be gracefully vindictive to a carefully treasured list of 'people who must not be let off'.”
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“I am not thinking in the manner of Peter Pan,” said the other. “With all reverence for the author of that masterpiece I should say he had a wonderful and tender insight into the child mind and knew nothing whatever about boys. To make only one criticism on that particular work, can you imagine a lot of British boys, or boys of any country that one knows of, who would stay contentedly playing children’s games in an underground cave when there were wolves and pirates and Red Indians to be had for the asking on the other side of the trap door?”