Quotes from Patrick O'Brian

it would be the Devil to pay and no pitch hot

it is a dreadful thing to have a whole carriageful of people draw up at your door and leap out grinning, the house all ahoo, carpets taken up, a great washing going on, the children bawling, yourself confined to the head, having taken physic, and your wife gone to Pompey in hopes of a new cook.

For a moment Jack felt the strongest inclination to snatch up his little gilt chair and beat the white-faced man down with it; but he gave way with a tolerable show of civility

Perhaps you would like to come into the cabin,' said Jack, taking Stephen's elbow in an iron grip. 'Your things will be brought aboard directly, never trouble yourself' – Stephen cast a look into the boat and seemed about to break away. 'I shall see to it myself at once, sir,' said the first lieutenant. 'Oh, Mr Simmons,' cried Stephen, 'pray bid them be very tender of my bees.' 'Certainly

What nonsense you do talk, to be sure,' said Stephen. 'What "balls", as you sea-officers say: it is a matter of common observation that a man may be sincerely attached to two women at once – to three, to four, to a very surprising number of women. However,' he said, 'no doubt you know more of these things than I.

that mean in terms of weekly income?

We are sailing under false colours,' whispered Stephen. 'Is not that very heinous?' 'Eh?' 'Wicked, morally indefensible?' 'Bless you, sir, we always do that, at sea. But we'll show our own at the last minute, you may be sure, before ever we fire a gun. That's justice. Look at him, now – he's throwing out a Danish waft, and as like as not he's no more a Dane than my grandam.

In fact he was quite pleased with it: one of the few female corpses he had seen with that curious quasicalcification of the palmar aponeuroses – fresh, too – but since it was only the hands that interested him at the moment, would either of his colleagues choose to go snacks?

man as part of a movement or a crowd is indifferent to me. He is inhuman. And I have nothing to do with nations, or nationalism. The only feelings I have – for what they are – are for men as individuals; my loyalties, such as they may be, are to private persons alone.

He heard a rushing of feet and a great terrible voice calling 'All hands, all hands ahoy! Out or down! Out or down! Rouse and bitt! Rise and shine! Show a leg there! Out or down! Here I come, with a sharp knife and a clear conscience!

Arma virumque cano

The newly-minted captain is told to let nothing stop him but to do nothing that would risk his ship or his crew.

Sailors were as conservative as cats, as he knew very well: they would put up with incredible labour and hardship, to say nothing of danger, but it had to be what they were used to or they would grow brutish.

HE WHO DARES NOTHING NEED HOPE FOR NOTHING. BUT HE WHO DARES WINS

The Navy speaks in symbols, and you may suit what meaning you choose to the words.

It must be a weary life, being in a permanent state of rage or at least at half-cock.

I speak only for myself, mind – it is my own truth alone – but man as part of a movement or a crowd is indifferent to me. He is inhuman. And I have nothing to do with nations, or nationalism. The only feelings I have – for what they are – are for men as individuals; my loyalties, such as they may be, are to private persons alone.

Two of his pictures had been seen at the first show in 1910, "La Fillette à la corbeille fleurie" and the modest "Clovis Sagot";

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.

No, no, no,' said Stephen. 'I deprecate violence. My part is to heal rather than to kill; or at least to kill with kindly intent.

I have seized upon documents, poems, letters; in short, j'ai pris mon bien là où je l'ai trouvé, and within a context of general historical accuracy I have changed names, places and minor events to suit my tale.

I have never yet known a man admit that he was either rich or asleep: perhaps the poor man and the wakeful man have some great moral advantage

To paint and nothing more. And to paint seeking a new expression, divested of useless realism, with a method linked only to my thought—without enslaving myself or associating myself with objective reality. Neither the good nor the true; neither the useful nor the useless. It is my will that takes form outside of all extrinsic schemes, without considering what the public or the critics will say.

Three days later he burst out in a completely new direction: seven drawings transport the "Déjeuners" to the Golden Age, and they are a joy to see, for Picasso was the draughtsman of the world, and the first is as lovely as anything in his long career.