Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Commonplace Book: I don't want to kill a tiger but...

From a letter Peter Fleming, Ian's older brother and the better writer (News From Tartary-- all the other editions are insanely expensive and this gives you two good books in one volume), wrote to his four- year- old son in England while he was working in intelligence in Burma in WW II:

"If you are good at spelling and writing, and also a sensible sort of chap, it is rather a good thing, because when you grow up it makes it easier to do the things you want to do, and sometimes people will send you specially in an aeroplane to some lovely place to write things about it, and you can generally take Mummy with you, or one of your friends, and perhaps there will be tigers to shoot, or something equally nice."`

2 comments:

J.R. Absher said...

“A dead tiger is the biggest thing I have ever seen in my life, and I have shot an elephant. A live tiger is the most exciting thing I have ever seen in my life, and I have shot a lion. A tiger in a hurry is the fastest thing I have ever seen in my life, and I have shot a leopard. A wild tiger is the most frightening thing I have ever seen in my life, and I have shot a Cape buffalo. But for the sport involved, today I would rather shoot quail than shoot another tiger.”
-Robert Ruark
Use Enough Gun, 1966

Steve Bodio said...

WONDERFUL quote!