Duels Quotes

“It was a damned near-run thing, I must admit,' said Jack, modestly; then after a pause he laughed and said, 'I remember your using those very words in the old Bellerophon, before we had our battle.'

'So I did,' cried Dundas. 'So I did. Lord, that was a great while ago.'

'I still bear the scar,' said Jack. He pushed up his sleeve, and there on his brown forearm was a long white line.

'How it comes back,' said Dundas; and between them, drinking port, they retold the tale, with minute details coming fresh to their minds. As youngsters, under the charge of the gunner of the Bellerophon, 74, in the West Indies, they had played the same game. Jack, with his infernal luck, had won on that occasion too: Dundas claimed his revenge, and lost again, again on a throw of double six. Harsh words, such as cheat, liar, sodomite, booby and God-damned lubber flew about; and since fighting over a chest, the usual way of settling such disagreements in many ships, was strictly forbidden in the Bellemphon, it was agreed that as gentlemen could not possibly tolerate such language they should fight a duel. During the afternoon watch the first lieutenant, who dearly loved a white-scoured deck, found that the ship was almost out of the best kind of sand, and he sent Mr Aubrey away in the blue cutter to fetch some from an island at the convergence of two currents where the finest and most even grain was found. Mr Dundas accompanied him, carrying two newly sharpened cutlasses in a sailcloth parcel, and when the hands had been set to work with shovels the two little boys retired behind a dune, unwrapped the parcel, saluted gravely, and set about each other. Half a dozen passes, the blades clashing, and when Jack cried out 'Oh Hen, what have you done?' Dundas gazed for a moment at the spurting blood, burst into tears, whipped off his shirt and bound up the wound as best he could. When they crept aboard a most unfortunately idle, becalmed and staring Bellerophon, their explanations, widely different and in both cases so weak that they could not be attempted to be believed, were brushed aside, and their captain flogged them severely on the bare breech. 'How we howled,' said Dundas. 'You were shriller than I was,' said Jack. 'Very like a hyena.”
― Patrick O'Brian, The Commodore

“I've given her signs! I've given her plenty of signs. What does she want me to do? Slap him across the face with my glove, and challenge him to pistols at dawn?”
― Molly Ringle, Relatively Honest

“I hardly dare open my mouth," drawled Gideon, "but there is much in what he says, Gaywood. I don't reckon myself a mean shot, but I would think twice before I engaged in pistol-play with Sale. And you won't hit him you know. He is such a little fellow, and you are such a damnably bad shot!”
― Georgette Heyer, The Foundling

“Sir, you have insulted me!" she cried theatrically. "I challenge you to a duel!"

"What weapons do ladies duel with?" Hugh laughed.

"Crochet hooks at dawn!”
― Ken Follett, A Dangerous Fortune

“Brave men don't fight for nothing, like children.' protested Howell's (Major Joe Howell) friend. 'We want to know what we are fighting about. If we are wrong we may apologize.”
― Herbert Asbury, The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld

“Seto Kaiba: The next generation Duel Disk is finally finished! Let the curtain rise on a new kind of Duel Monsters! Now I must start the play at the only appropriate place...the place where the ancient duelists and their cards slumber in the stones...Gather, duelists...by the gravestone of your predecessors!”
― Kazuki Takahashi, Yu-Gi-Oh! (3-in-1 Edition), Vol. 6

“Under the cover of darkness, that’s when duels were arranged, to conceal the proceedings that were frowned upon by law; and there was enough time for sobering-up if the challenge was prompted by intemperance brought on by too much drink. This duel though, was preplanned. “. . . that was how a dress sword came to be a part of a gentleman’s formal attire,” Francisco thus concluded his disquisition on duels that had proceeded at sinuous length when the three friends: Rodrigo, Miguel and himself, had gathered in his study to strategize just last Monday. Both parties had agreed to use pistols, not swords which was the weapon of choice up until the end of the last century. “If you can afford one, you can have a bespoke pistol made, Rodrigo,” said Francisco who, as was his wont, had been on a fact-finding mission about duels. These pistols came in cases complete with The Twenty-six Commandments, the code book that laid down the methodus pugnandi, the same book that Miguel had now folded and shoved into his pocket, its pages soft like cloth from much handling – and the damp from the river-mist. He and Francisco shuffled around in the shadows cast by the incipient pre-dawn sun, still unsure of their roles in this debauchery.”
― Franciska Soares, They Whisper in my Blood

“When a man prepared to duel, he would bring a second. When Claire met with the Mortons, she would bring a sister.
Heaven help Charles Morton if he tried to cross them both.”
― Fenna Edgewood, Mistakes Not to Make When Avoiding a Rake

“A Futile Gesture by Stewart Stafford

Challenged to de Clair's Danse Macabre,
Sebastian counted condemned steps,
Thistle ranks awaiting duelling blood,
A powdered farce of silk and steel.

Spun, heart exposed to pistol shot,
Sebastian faced his rival, Flintlock fired,
A sharp crack counterpointed the gale,
A crimson bloom on his foe’s ribcage.

Honour preserved, whatever it meant -
Slain Baron de Clair curtsied to tilled earth,
The manservant held out his master's coat
as if death were but a pause in the day.

© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Dyran rose slowly, a vermilion scarf in his hand. Every eye in the area was now on him; as host to the conflict, it was his privilege to signal the start of the duel. He smiled graciously, and dropped the square of silk. It fluttered to the sand, ignored, as the carnage began. In the end, even a few of the elven spectators excused themselves, and Serina found herself averting her eyes. She’d had no idea how much damage two blunt instruments could do. But Dyran watched on; not eagerly, as Lady Alinor, who sat forward in her seat, punctuating each blow with little coos of delight—nor with bored patience, as Sandar. But with casual amusement, a little, pleased smile playing at the corners of his mouth, and a light in his eyes when he looked at Alinor that Serina could not read. And when it was over—as it was, quickly, too quickly for many of the spectators—when all of the other elven lords had gone, he made his move. Toward Alinor. A significant touch of his hand on her arm, a few carefully chosen words—both, as if Serina were not present.”
― Mercedes Lackey, The Elvenbane