Quotes from Dudley Pope

We won the war and Hawkesbury and Addington have lost the peace

Thinking of his forebears, it seemed the actual moment of death was not important to record: you died when those who lived forgot your existence.

The captain was not the tip of a pyramid, as most people thought; in fact it was just the reverse: he was the spindle on which everything else balanced.

You can't train a fox not to kill hens; you can't stop Algerines killing everyone who won't bow before Allah.

If I marry all the women I love, I have a hundred wives!

An hour at sea with Uncle Nicholas comprised forty minutes of waiting, nineteen minutes of wondering, and one minute of sheer excitement.

Once you realize it's a 'them or us' situation, though," Southwick said conversationally, "it's surprising how you see it all in a different light.

It was not that these men were cold-blooded or hard-hearted: death was something they had to take in their stride. Dwelling on it would probably drive a man mad

politics are the curse of the Navy!

if you were to lead successfully, whether a kingdom or a ship's company, the only standards worth bothering with were those you set yourself; those of others were—well, those of the mob; those who were led, who had neither the ability nor the courage to sit alone and make the decisions.

Corruption, my boy, makes the world go round.

obeying the Admiralty instruction which said only that a man "claimed" the woman as his "wife," with no limit on the number of ports in which the man could have a "wife").