Contact
Privacy
Book: The Thirteen-Gun Salute
Quotes of Book: The Thirteen-Gun Salute
TOP TAGS :dursleypriceprophetswakefulnessnobel-prizeseeingpurityteen

  1. Patrick O'Brian _ The Thirteen-Gun Salute

    Stephen's intense irritation lasted all the time he was climbing into the maintop, and this so took away from his dread and his habitual caution that Jack said, 'What a fellow you are, Stephen. When you choose you can go aloft like' - he was about to say 'a human being' but changed this before it quite left his gullet to 'like an able seaman."
    book-quote

  2. Patrick O'Brian _ The Thirteen-Gun Salute

    expressed myself badly. What I meant was that if he could induce others to believe what he said, then for him the statement acquired some degree of truth, a reflection of their belief that it was true; and this reflected truth might grow stronger with time and repetition until it became conviction, indistinguishable from ordinary factual truth, or very nearly so.
    book-quote

  3. Patrick O'Brian _ The Thirteen-Gun Salute

    all that wretched schoolmastering.' 'On some it acts like a poison, making them unfit for the society of grown men.
    book-quote

  4. Patrick O'Brian _ The Thirteen-Gun Salute

    I am not master of words to tell you, Jack, the value of an exceedingly remote island to a naturalist, an uninhabited fertile volcanic island covered with a luxuriant vegetation, with no vile rats, dogs, cats, goats, swine, introduced by fools to destroy an Eden, an island untouched...
    book-quote

  5. Patrick O'Brian _ The Thirteen-Gun Salute

    Tell me, sir, do you know of any banker that really understands his business? Some modern Fugger?' 'Oh, Stephen, if you please,' cried Jack.
    book-quote

  6. Patrick O'Brian _ The Thirteen-Gun Salute

    he was hungry; and he was cross with his wife, who had said in her clear ringing voice, 'I will tell you what, Maturin, if this baby of ours has anything like the discontented, bilious, liverish expression you have brought down from town, it shall be changed out of hand for something more cheerful from the Foundling Hospital.
    book-quote

  7. Patrick O'Brian _ The Thirteen-Gun Salute

    Ah,' said Loder, meaning by this that he regretted the turtle and the geese, that he thought Fox's refusal for his colleagues an abuse of authority, and that he for one dissociated himself from the barbarous incivility: a considerable burden for a single 'ah', but one that it bore easily.
    book-quote

  8. Patrick O'Brian _ The Thirteen-Gun Salute

    the modesty and diffidence that the penniless, unemployed Standish had brought aboard were now no longer to be seen; and the assurance of a monthly income and a settled position had developed a displeasing and often didactic loquacity. He was also, of course, incompetent.
    book-quote

  9. Patrick O'Brian _ The Thirteen-Gun Salute

    Yet so far his mind had produced little; it turned and turned, but the turning, though arduous, was sterile. Some great man had said, 'A thought is like a flash between two dark nights': at present Stephen's nights were running into one uninterrupted darkness, lit by no gleams at all. The coca-leaves he chewed had the property of doing away with hunger and fatigue, giving some degree of euphoria, and making one feel clever and even witty; he certainly had no appetite and he did not feel physically tired, but as for the rest he might have been eating hay.
    book-quote

  10. Patrick O'Brian _ The Thirteen-Gun Salute

    Perhaps there will be news from home waiting for us there. Lord, how I should love to know how things are going.' 'Oh so should I,' cried Stephen. 'Though it is not yet possible that there should be word of Diana and our daughter. Sometimes when I think of that little soul I grow quite lachrymose.' 'A few months of roaring and bawling and swaddling-clothes will soon cure you of that. You have to be a woman to bear babies.' 'So I have always understood,' said Stephen.
    book-quote

  11. Patrick O'Brian _ The Thirteen-Gun Salute

    What I meant was that if he could induce others to believe what he said, then for him the statement acquired some degree of truth, a reflection of their belief that it was true; and this reflected truth might grow stronger with time and repetition until it became conviction, indistinguishable from ordinary factual truth, or very nearly so.
    book-quote

  12. Patrick O'Brian _ The Thirteen-Gun Salute

    First there was the sky, high, pure and of a darker blue than he had ever seen. And then there was the sea, a lighter, immensely luminous blue that reflected blue into the air, the shadows and the sails; a sea that stretched away immeasurably when the surge raised the frigate high, showing an orderly array of great crests, each three furlongs from its predecessor, and all sweeping eastwards in an even, majestic procession.
    book-quote
Categories