Post Captain Quotes
"Silence there, God damn you," cried Captain Griffiths. "Mr Quarles, take that man's name."
"No question of a match, therefore, and no discredit in bearing up and running for it."
"The situation was still fluid; it was more a potentiality than a situation."
"Any decision now would crystallize it, and the moment it began to take shape all the succeeding events would follow of themselves."
"But any decision must be made quickly - at the Charwell’s present rate of sailing they would be within range of the two-decker in less than ten minutes."
"Everything was damned odd, from this Frenchman’s conduct onwards."
"The feeling of those eyes on his back filled Captain Griffiths with rage."
"In spite of the captain’s automatic ‘Take that man’s name, Mr Quarles,’ it flowed back to the mainmast and spread throughout the ship, a full-throated howl of joy."
"His occupation was gone, vanished in a puff of smoke; but now no one on God’s earth could ever know what signal he had been about to make."
"You have been at sea quite some time now, and no one could call you a fool, but you have no more notion of a sailor’s life than a babe unborn."
"There was a great deal to be said for a house, not too far from the sea, in that sort of country."
"It’s an odd thing about you, Stephen. You have no more notion of a sailor’s life than a babe unborn."
"You never even heard of the engagement, I collect?"
"Well,' she said, as their hoof-beats died away in the night, 'I believe that was as successful a dinner-party as I have ever given."
"Now, my dears,' whispered Mrs Williams, 'I dare say you all noticed Captain Aubrey's great interest in Sophia - he was quite particular."
"I wonder, I wonder,' said Jack, 'whether there is any goose left at home, or whether those infernal brutes have eaten it up."
"And damned near with the pudding, too. But what charming girls they are!"
"A man may be brilliant in his calling and a mere child outside it."
"There is no friendship in men: I know what I am talking about, believe me."
"The only thing a man can offer a woman is marriage, an equal marriage."
"How helpless a man is, against direct attack by a woman."
"A good fiddle would bring you into bloom, and you earned an Amati by every minute you spent on the deck of the Cacafuego."
"If you wish to be so absolute, no, I have not."
"He was not what you would call a wicked bloody cock, but once he was in the ring, once he was challenged, he would fight."
"You have treated me like a dog at times, Villiers."
"I came slowly over Polcary, rehearsing the words in which I should tell you I had come to break, and that I was happy to do so in kindness and friendship, with no bitter words to remember."
"The speckled pie did not really want to fight."
"You seem to have had a hot walk, Dr Maturin. How eager you must be to see -"
"Yet by force of repetition words that wounded me bitterly not long ago have lost their full effect; the closed door is no longer death."
"I am not strongly tempted to go to Mapes; I am not strongly tempted to drink up the laudanum whose drops I count so superstitiously each night."
"Will you not let me go, Diana?" he said, looking up, his eyes filling with tears.
"It is so clear and simple. I do not mean just escaping from the bums; I mean all the complications of life on shore."
"But the pink roof, and behind it a peak? And to the right of that, beyond the forest, a bare mountain? That is the frontier, joy."
"I cannot tell you what a relief it is to be at sea."
"This bear ain’t. I dare say it’s hot. Bears is Greenland creatures."
"You may not eat the satanic boletus, my dear. See how it turns blue when I break it with a twig. That is the devil blushing."
"All admiralties are the same. I swear, on the head of my mother, that our admiralty..."
"I hope to God I have that fornicating young sod under my command one day. I’ll make him dance a hornpipe - oh, such a hornpipe."
"You will not forget my tincture? I shall abandon it entirely, once I am in Lérida, but until then it is necessary to me."
"The only hope, the only solution, is a - His voice died away."
"I suppose it would be wicked to pray for war. But oh to be afloat."
"Some reality other than general suffering returned."
"A high-towered castle just below them on a jutting rock - a lobbed stone would reach it; the Pyrenees folded away and away in long fingers to the plain; square distant fields, vineyards green; a shining river winding left-handed towards the great sweep of the sea."
"His body was dead white where it was not cruelly galled, bitten, rasped; his colourless face puffy, sweat-swollen, corpse-like, a tangled yellow beard covering his mouth; his eyes were red and pustulent. But there was life in them, brilliant delight blazing through the physical distress."
"The first to come aboard were Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin; they were received by the captain at the head of his officers in some style."
"The Lord Nelson had never been a happy or a fortunate ship, but within an hour of taking her passengers on board a brisk Levanter sprang up to carry her right out through the strong current of the Gut and into the full Atlantic."
"‘Well, well, well,’ said Jack. in the Navy they did not think nine men and a powder-boy too much for an eighteen-pounder, seven and a boy for the twelves: a hundred and twenty-four men to fight the guns one side -a hundred and twenty-four beef- and pork-fed Englishmen, and another hundred to trim the sails, work the ship, repel boarders, ply the small arms, and fight the other side on occasion."
"‘We were shipmates,’ said Jack, shaking Pullings’s hand with a force in direct proportion to his affection for the young man."
"‘I am in no hurry. I wish this voyage would go on for ever,’ said Miss Lamb, arousing an echo in her sister alone."
"‘An officer? Pressed for a common sailor?’ cried Jack. ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing in my life.’"
"Do not believe him, Dr Maturin. He has been telling us how you certainly saved his life. We are so grateful; he has taught us to knot laniards and to splice our wool."
"‘Could you really see its fins that great way off?’ cried Miss Susan. ‘How wonderful sailors are!’"
"There must be a fair-sized pod. No good to man or beast. It vexes my heart to think of all that prime oil swimming there, no good to man or beast."
"‘But why is the whale no good?’ asked Miss Lamb."
"Well, because she is a finwhale, to be sure."
"‘What a damned shame,’ cried Jack, who had seen Pullings in action and who knew that the Navy did not and indeed could not possibly have too many coves like him."
"‘I dare say you are right,’ said Jack. ‘And nine parts of it is in this vile skin, a good three stone of human grease.’"
"‘Is that castle yours, Stephen?’ ‘It is. And this is my sheepwalk. What is more,’ he said, looking sharply at the cowpats, ‘I believe those French dogs from La Vaill have been sending their cattle over to eat my grass.’"
"Surely to God you must see she’s spilling her wind."
"This had happened to him before; it was happening to Jack now; it was one of the little miseries of life."
"But Friday’s sea was all alive with sails - the ocean was speckled with the sober drab of a fleet of bankers, coming home with codfish from Newfoundland; they could be smelt a mile downwind."
"A sloop that does not strike to a ship of the line is a fool."
"We see things differently. We have different proportions."
"But I tell you what it is, Tom: I came out without a cloak and without any money."
"But my God, what a life. Doing this every day, cooped up with a ledger - what a life."
"And even better when the middle button is sewn on."
"Sometimes you receive a knock in action: it may be your death-wound or just a scratch, a graze - you cannot tell at once."
"He felt that he was in command of the situation, of any situation, in spite of the wolves outside the door."
"By the law of social metaphysics some of the great man’s star had rubbed off on him, as well as a little of young Canning’s easy opulence."
"Contempt was very hard to bear. In his place she would have come, bailiffs or no bailiffs; he was sure of that."
"But how could she have asked him to do such a thing? How could she ask so much?"
"He was filled with indignation. ‘Dog, dog, dog,’ he said, watching for a movement."
"It is the devil - you cannot have a fellow walking about taking purses; and yet you do not like to see him hang."
"Logic could apply only to a deliberate seduction or to a marriage of interest."
"Taking his bearings, however, was something else again: he had never attempted to do so yet, nor to find out the deep nature of his present feelings."
"But it was nothing. I sewed it on again; and as I say, if you had seen him last night, you would have been easy in your mind."
"It is dreadful to be unkind: one keeps remembering it."
"Yet he dared not leave the Admiralty: if he were taken at this stage he would hang himself out of mere fury."
"Be a good fellow and desire him to step into the hall. I will see him at once."
"Dr Maturin bids me tell you that all was well in Seething Lane, and he hopes you will join him at the Grapes, by the Savoy, if you are not bespoke."
"Make it so, Mr -. Bring it into the yard and I am with you."
"I am sorry I gave your ear such a knock. Does it hurt a great deal?"
"You are very good, sir. I do not feel it now."
"The duchy of Lancaster, sir. From Cecil Street to the other side of Exeter Change it is part of the duchy, neither London nor Westminster, and the law is different - writs not the same as London writs."
"You are an honest fellow, Mr Scriven. Here we are: this is the Grapes."
"Thank you, thank you, Stephen. What a charming sound - they ring out like freedom."
"Let us start with the sturgeon, and if you put the ducks down to the fire this very minute, they will be ready by the time we have done."
"What a God-forsaken melancholy tope. Let us call for champagne."
"Your creditors must have taken notice of it. Their agents in Portsmouth are perfectly capable of meeting the coach."
"I had not thought of going to sea at present."
"I do not give a fig for a flagship. I should far prefer a sloop or a frigate."
"It is a fever of the blood, and laudanum will cool it, distance will cool it, business and action will do the same."
"All ports I have seen are much the same. It does not reflect their nature, however, but rather the nature of the land."
"There are two men following you. Come over here and look out discreetly."
"Stephen, what do you say to a drink? I spent the whole morning in the foretop, starved with cold."
"The rake of the masts was a great consideration, of course."
"Life at sea had the great advantage that something was amiss."
"He tried to place it, glancing sharply fore and aft in the greyness of approaching day."
"‘We will put her about, Mr Goodridge,’ he said."
"‘Luff up handsomely, now,’ he said quietly to the man at the wheel."