Duelling Quotes

Lady Esmeralda's background was no less interesting than herself; it was a colourful picture of luxury and squalor. Armies of servants thronged the great houses; coaches rumbled up to the doors. Huge meals were eaten at tables laden with silver and lit by candles; there was drinking and gambling and duelling. Highwaymen frequented lonely roads and footpads lurked in the streets. Thieves were hanged and crowds gathered to see the grisly entertainment. The picture of life in those far-off days became so real and clear that I felt as if I had lived in them myself. It was almost as if I remembered them. Sometimes I returned to them in my dreams (which was not always enjoyable) and occasionally I found myself ~ D.E. Stevenson

No duelling. No summoning of imps or other manifestations of elements potentially damaging to the records, including but not limited to: elementals, imps, sprites, ifrits, goblins, vile maidens, elohim, and major, minor and inferior spawn. No praying. No cursing, except by staff. The library is closed on public holidays. Donations welcome."
-Demonia Library ~ Justina Robson

Something not going well, Mr. Boxley?"
The novelist looked back at him in thunderous silence.
"I read your letter," said Stahr. The tone of the pleasant young headmaster was gone. He spoke as to an equal, but with a faint two-edged deference.
"I can't get what I write on paper," broke out Boxley. "You've all been very decent, but it's a sort of conspiracy. Those two hacks you've teamed me with listen to what I say, but they spoil it--they seem to have a vocabulary of about a hundred words."
"Why don't you write it yourself?" asked Stahr.
"I have. I sent you some."
"But it was just talk, back and forth," said Stahr mildly. "Interesting talk but nothing more."
Now it was all the two ghostly attendants could do to hold Boxley in the deep chair. He struggled to get up; he uttered a single quiet bark which had some relation to laughter but non to amusement, and said:
"I don't think you people read things. The men are duelling when the conversation takes place. At the end one of them falls into a well and has to be hauled up in a bucket."
He barked again and subsided.
Would you write that in a book of your own, Mr. Boxley?"
"What? Naturally not."
"You'd consider it too cheap."
"Movie standards are different," said Boxley, hedging.
"Do you ever go to them?"
"No--almost never."
"Isn't it because people are always duelling and falling down wells?"
Yes--and wearing strained facial expressions and talk ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

I'm in danger here. Serious, imminent danger of being charmed senseless by a handsome artist who arouses in me the duelling urges to run away screaming or strip naked and fling myself onto his torso and cling there like a crab. ~ J.T. Geissinger

The blades sang like the strokes of a hammer on a blacksmith's anvil echoing in the empty churchyard. ~ Stanley Goldyn

Rule of duelling etiquette: when choosing a weapon for single combat, you should absolutely not choose to wield your grandfather. ~ Rick Riordan

Napoleon I., whose career had the quality of a duel against the whole
of Europe, disliked duelling between the officers of his army. The great military emperor was not a washbuckler, and had little respect for tradition.

Nevertheless, a story of duelling, which became a legend in the army, runs through the epic of imperial wars. To the surprise and admiration of their fellows, two officers, like insane artists trying to gild refined gold or paint the lily, pursued a private contest through the years of universal carnage.
They were officers of cavalry, and their connection with the high-spirited but fanciful animal which carries men into battle seems particularly appropriate.
It would be difficult to imagine for heroes of this legend two officers of infantry of the line, for example, whose fantasy is tamed by much walking exercise, and whose valour necessarily must be of a more plodding kind. As to gunners or engineers, whose heads are kept cool on a diet of mathematics, it is simply unthinkable.

The names of the two officers were Feraud and D'Hubert, and they were both lieutenants in a regiment of hussars, but not in the same regiment. [The duel] ~ Joseph Conrad

As a Senator I am opposed to duelling. As Ben. Wade, I recognize the code. ~ Benjamin F. Wade

However much this annoyed me, it is accepted practice for a duellist's supporters to cheer them on- in fact, i was entitled to similar outbursts from my own admirers.
'This Undriel fellow really is remarkably skilled,'Kest remarked.
Undriel. That was the bastard's name.
Brasti came to my defence, after a fashion. 'It's not Falcio's fault. He's getting old. And slow. Also, i think he might be getting fat. Just look at him- barely four months since he beat Shuran and already he's half the man he once was.'
Always nice to have friends nearby in troubled times, i thought, batting at Undriel's blade with a clumsy parry that was testament to my increasing exhaustion. ~ Sebastien De Castell

There, at the top of the table, alone amongst all these women, stooped over his ample plateful, with his napkin tied around his neck like a child, an old man sat eating, drips of gravy drbibbling gravy from him lips. His eyes were bloodshot and he had a little pigtail tied up with a black ribbon. This was the Marquis' father-in-law ... he had led a ... Read more tumultuous life of debauchery and duelling, of wagers made and women abducted, had squandered his fortune and terrified his whole family ... Emma's eyes kept coming back to this old man with the sagging lips, as though to something wonderfully majestic. He had lived at court and slept in the bed of a queen! ~ Gustave Flaubert