Life & Wisdom Quote by Leslie Charteris

“About the Saint’s amorous adventures, by the way, I can’t speak so brazenly” is a masterclass in writerly misdirection: a tease disguised as restraint. Leslie Charteris, shaping the long-running myth of Simon Templar (a.k.a. “the Saint”), knows exactly what readers came for - glamour, danger, and the charged implication that the hero’s charm does as much work as his fists. The line dangles that expectation, then snaps it back with a prim little refusal.

The phrase “by the way” is doing sly labor. It pretends this is an aside, a casual footnote, when it’s actually a spotlight. Mentioning “amorous adventures” at all is a wink to the audience: we’re allowed to think about them, even if the narrator won’t “speak so brazenly.” That mock-modesty isn’t moral squeamishness so much as tactical narration. Charteris keeps the Saint’s sexuality present but offstage, maintaining both the character’s mystique and the period’s publishing decorum.

“Brazenly” is the key tell. It doesn’t deny the behavior; it frames the telling as the risky act. The subtext is, I know more than I’m saying, and you know what I’m implying. It’s also an authorial assertion of control: the Saint can be a libertine without the prose becoming vulgar, because Charteris decides where the camera cuts away.

Contextually, this fits the interwar-to-midcentury gentleman-adventurer tradition: stories that sell transgression in a tuxedo. The restraint isn’t repression; it’s marketing. What’s left unsaid becomes part of the thrill.