“Is is difficult to be angry with a gentleman who pays you compliments, even impertinent compliments. Especially impertinent compliments. ”

“It's not unsporting to thrash a cowardly cad,' said Simmons. 'Everyone knows you don't fight like a gentleman.''That might be called an oxymoron,' Ramses said. 'Oh--sorry. Bad form to use long words. Look it up when you get home.'The poor devil didn't know how to fight, like a gentleman or otherwise.”

“The trouble with unknown enemies is that they are so difficult to identify.”

“I'm trying to compliment you," Barclay say. "Can't you just say thanks?”

“Emerson abandoned irony for blunt and passionate speech.'This war has been a monumental blunder from the start! Britain is not solely responsible, but by God, gentlemen, she must share the blame, and she will pay a heavy price: the best of her young men, future scholars and scientists and statesmen, and ordinary, decent men who might have led ordinary, decent lives. And how will it end, when you tire of your game of soldiers? A few boundaries redrawn, a few transitory political advantages, in exchange for an entire continent laid waste and a million graves! What I do may be of minor importance in the total accumulation of knowledge, but at least I don't have blood on my hands.”

“In the silence I heard Bastet, who had retreated under the bed, carrying on a mumbling, profane monologue. (If you ask how I knew it was profane, I presume you have never owned a cat.)”

“The way to get on with a cat is to treat it as an equal - or even better, as the superior it knows itself to be.”