Your Englishman, confronted by something abnormal will always pretend that it isn’t there. If, however, you force him to look into it, he’ll at once pretend that he sees the object not for what it is but for something that he would like it to be.

that Englishman who came to challenge me three or four months ago, and whom I killed to stop him bothering me

The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction.

Because I am an Englishman I spent most of my life in a state of embarrassment.

I am not an Englishman, I was never an Englishman, and I don’t ever want to be one. I am a Scotsman! I was a Scotsman and I will always be one.

The gin and tonic has saved more Englishmen’s lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire.