“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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“No chemical process shows a more wonderful activity than the transforming influence of the thoughts we imagine to be going on in another.”
― George Eliot, quote from Daniel Deronda
“Winter denial: therein lay the key to California Schadenfreude--the secret joy that the rest of the country feels at the misfortune of California. The country said: "Look at them, with their fitness and their tans, their beaches and their movie stars, their Silicon Valley and silicone breasts, their orange bridge and their palm trees. God, I hate those smug, sunshiny bastards!" Because if you're up to your navel in a snowdrift in Ohio, nothing warms your heart like the sight of California on fire. If you're shoveling silt out of your basement in the Fargo flood zone, nothing brightens your day like watching a Malibu mansion tumbling down a cliff into the sea. And if a tornado just peppered the land around your Oklahoma town with random trailer trash and redneck nuggets, then you can find a quantum of solace in the fact that the earth actually opened up in the San Fernando Valley and swallowed a whole caravan of commuting SUVs.”
― Christopher Moore, quote from The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror
“That's never been my life, nor ever will."
"Why not? You'll wed a farmer one day, or small tradesman, and live respectably among your neighbours. Don't tell them you lived once at Jamaica Inn, and had love made to you by a horse-thief. They'd shut their doors against you. Good-bye, and here's prosperity to you.”
― Daphne du Maurier, quote from Jamaica Inn
“Am I supposed to feel so much awe and so on about the Godking? After all, he's just a man ... He's about fifty years old, and he's bald. And I'll bet he has to cut his toenails too like any other man. I know perfectly well he's a god, too. But what I think is, he'll be much godlier after he's dead.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from The Tombs of Atuan
“Now I don't want to lie to you, there were some Blacks in the neighborhood, but they asses was so uptight I figured if I asked them a question they'd want me to pay for the answer.”
― Sister Souljah, quote from The Coldest Winter Ever
Awaken
Henry V
Baudolino
Esperanza Rising
Jesus the Christ
Chosen at NightfallBookQuoters 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.
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