“Go and see whether the Doctor is about,’ said Jack, ‘and if he is, ask him to look in, when he has a moment.’
Which he is in the fish-market, turning over some old-fashioned lobsters. No. I tell a lie. That is him, falling down the companion-way and cursing in foreign.”
― Patrick O'Brian, quote from Blue at the Mizzen
“No man born of woman has ever understood spoken Portuguese.”
― Patrick O'Brian, quote from Blue at the Mizzen
“Touch and away, Jack?’ asked Stephen. ‘Touch and away? Do you not recall that I have important business there? Enquiries of the very first interest?’
To do with our enterprise? To do with this voyage?’
Perhaps not quite directly.”
― Patrick O'Brian, quote from Blue at the Mizzen
“It’s all along of the unicorn’s horn – it’s all along of the glorious hand. Huzzay, three times huzzay for the doctor!’
Lord, how they cheered their surgeon! It was he who had brought the narwhal’s tusk aboard: and the severed hand, the Hand of Glory, was his property: both symbolized (and practically guaranteed) immense good fortune, virility, safety from poison or any disease you chose to name: and both had proved their worth.”
― Patrick O'Brian, quote from Blue at the Mizzen
“He reflected on his hitherto reflection that soldiers and sailors were, upon the whole, quite different creatures. ‘And perhaps they are, too: yet perhaps drink, in very large quantities, may make the difference less evident.”
― Patrick O'Brian, quote from Blue at the Mizzen
“Almost all voyages, from that of Noah’s Ark to the sending of the ships to Troy, have been marked by interminable delays, with false starts and turning wind and tide; perhaps the schooner Ringle was too slim and slight to count as a worthy adversary, because she gently sailed her anchor out of the ground and then bore away a little east of north with a wind that allowed her to spread every sail she possessed, other than those reserved for foul or very foul weather.”
― Patrick O'Brian, quote from Blue at the Mizzen
Patrick O'Brian
Born place: in Chalfont St. Peter, Buckinghamshire, The United Kingdom
Born date December 12, 1914
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“But I thought you protested against the communists."
"Phooh. That was before I found our that capitalists are just communists without the polyester.”
― Brigid Pasulka, quote from A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True
“The child who is taken only as he is—whose potentiality is ignored or slighted—remains where he is, or even slides backward. But the child who is treated as if he is already what he should be, often begins to make the most startling progress to what he can be.”
― quote from Discover the Power Within You
“A brute-force solution that works is better than an elegant solution that doesn't work. It can take a long time to get an elegant solution to work. In describing the history of searching algorithms, for example, Donald Knuth pointed out that even though the first description of a binary search algorithm was published in 1946, it took another 16 years for someone to publish an algorithm that correctly searched lists of all sizes (Knuth 1998). A binary search is more elegant, but a brute-force, sequential search is often sufficient. When in doubt, use brute force. — Butler Lampson”
― quote from Code Complete
“I don’t want to be defined by this.”
― Jane Harvey-Berrick, quote from Dangerous to Know & Love
“When external sources of power are sought in personal relationships to overcome inner feelings of powerlessness, power comes not from a place of strength but from a place of weakness. This can only lead to trouble. Using”
― quote from Thank You for Being Such a Pain: Spiritual Guidance for Dealing with Difficult People
These High, Green Hi...
Out to Canaan
Full Moon
The Leopard Prince
The Lace Reader
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
