The Most Dangerous Game quotes

“Maybe. But sometimes I think sailors have an extra sense that tells them when they are in danger.

Sometimes I think evil is a tangible thing—with wave lengths, just as sound and light have.

An evil place can, so to speak, broadcast vibrations of evil. Anyhow, I’m glad we’re getting out of this zone. Well, I think I’ll turn in now, Rainsford.”

The general smiled. “No,” he said. “Hunting tigers ceased to interest me some years ago. I exhausted their possibilities, you see. No thrill left in tigers, no real danger.

I live for danger, Mr. Rainsford.

”

The general filled both glasses, and said: “

God makes some men poets. Some He makes kings, some beggars. Me He made a hunter.

My hand was made for the trigger, my father said. He was a very rich man with a quarter of a million acres in the Crimea, and he was an ardent sportsman.

“Simply this: hunting had ceased to be what you call ‘a sporting proposition.’ It had become too easy. I always got my quarry. Always.

There is no greater bore than perfection.

”

“No animal had a chance with me any more. That is no boast; it is a mathematical certainty. The animal had nothing but his legs and his instinct.

Instinct is no match for reason.

When I thought of this it was a tragic moment for me, I can tell you.”

The general smiled the quiet smile of one who has faced an obstacle and surmounted it with success.

“I had to invent a new animal to hunt,” he said.

“A new animal? You’re joking.”

Laughter shook the general. “How extraordinarily droll you are!” he said. “One does not expect nowadays to find a young man of the educated class, even in America, with such a naïve, and, if I may say so, mid-Victorian point of view.

It’s like finding a snuffbox in a limousine.

Ah, well, doubtless you had Puritan ancestors. So many Americans appear to have had. I’ll wager you’ll forget your notions when you go hunting with me. You’ve a genuine new thrill in store for you, Mr. Rainsford.”

“Life is for the strong, to be lived by the strong, and, if needs be, taken by the strong.

The weak of the world were put here to give the strong pleasure.

I am strong. Why should I not use my gift? If I wish to hunt, why should I not? I hunt the scum of the earth:

The smile on the general’s face widened.

“To date I have not lost,” he said.

Then he added, hastily: “I don’t wish you to think me a braggart, Mr. Rainsford. Many of them afford only the most elementary sort of problem. Occasionally I strike a tartar. One almost did win. I eventually had to use the dogs.”

“My dear fellow,” said the general, “have I not told you I always mean what I say about hunting? This is really an inspiration.

I drink to a foeman worthy of my steel—at last.

”

Even so zealous a hunter as General Zaroff could not trace him there, he told himself; only the devil himself could follow that complicated trail through the jungle after dark. But perhaps the general was a devil——

An apprehensive night crawled slowly by like a wounded snake and sleep did not visit Rainsford, although the silence of a dead world was on the jungle.

Toward morning when a dingy gray was varnishing the sky, the cry of some startled bird focused Rainsford’s attention in that direction. Something was coming through the bush, coming slowly, carefully, coming by the same winding way Rainsford had come.

The general was playing with him! The general was saving him for another day’s sport!

The Cossack was the cat; he was the mouse. Then it was that Rainsford knew the full meaning of terror.

“I will not lose my nerve. I will not.”

It seemed to Rainsford that the general was coming with unusual swiftness; he was not feeling his way along, foot by foot. Rainsford, crouching there, could not see the general, nor could he see the pit.

He lived a year in a minute.

Then he felt an impulse to cry aloud with joy, for he heard the sharp crackle of the breaking branches as the cover of the pit gave way; he heard the sharp scream of pain as the pointed stakes found their mark.

with a bit of wild grapevine he tied back the sapling. Then he ran for his life. The hounds raised their voices as they hit the fresh scent.

Rainsford knew now how an animal at bay feels.

He had to stop to get his breath. The baying of the hounds stopped abruptly, and Rainsford’s heart stopped too. They must have reached the knife.