Quotes from Patrick O'Brian

I am not what would ordinarily be called a dressy man, as you are aware; but I should not have presented myself here in the utmost degree of squalor . . .' 'No, no ... '. . . had it not been a matter of some urgency. Though,' he murmured, looking at his cuff, 'this was quite a good shirt, some years ago.

But there were also men of far greater value who were drawn to Cubism, men whose language was paint or sculpture: among them Léger, Picabia, Delaunay, La Fresnaye, Le Fauconnier, Dufy for a while and Friesz, Lhote, Kisling, Herbin of the Bateau-Lavoir, Survage, Marcoussis, Diego Rivera, Mondrian, Archipenko, Brancusi, Lipchitz, and perhaps the most important of them all, the three brothers Jacques Villon, Duchamp-Villon, and Marcel Duchamp.

It has been said that in the "Jeune fille à la mandoline" Picasso was getting the best of several worlds, and certainly he makes use both of immediate and of remote symbols in what even the most sullen and dogged opponents of Cubism confess to be a

Nelson once said that love of his country served him for a greatcoat.

And from plunder and drunkenness to breaking out entirely and even to mutiny itself is not a terrible long way further. Mutinies always happen in ships where the discipline is either too lax or too severe.

Those strokes of profound cunning, those little stratagems that had seemed individually so impenetrable, now in the mass took on a sadly imbecile appearance.

Tell the master, from me,' cried Jack, in a voice that reached almost to Cagliari, his face purple with effort and furious indignation, 'tell the master that he can take his man's toe and – with it.' He stumped below, £875 the poorer, and looking thoroughly sour and disagreeable.

the saint told her that more tears were shed over prayers that were granted than ever were shed over prayers that were refused.

Castlereagh hanging at the one masthead and Fitzgibbon at the other,' thought Stephen, but with only the weariest gleam of spirit.

Gómez de la Serna illustrates this with a dialogue between a critic and a sage: Critic: It is true that these pictures do not displease my eye; but since I do not understand them, I cannot like them. Sage: What did you have for lunch? Critic: Oysters. Sage: Do you like oysters? Critic: Passionately. Sage: Do you understand oysters?

Joe. Are youse a-going out?' 'I ain't Joe,' said Jack. 'Who are you, then?' asked the boat, now visible. 'Jack.' 'Where's Joe?' 'Gone to Salem.' 'Are youse a-going out, Jack?' 'Maybe.' 'You got any bait, Jack?' 'No.' 'Well, fuck you, Jack.

A commander is obeyed by his officers because he is himself obeying; the thing is not in its essence personal; and so down. If he does not obey, the chain weakens. How grave I am, for all love.

Knock-knock on the door. 'Beg pardon, your honour. Loblolly boy's all in a mother, sir. Young Mr Ricketts has swallowed a musket-ball and they can't get it out. Choking to death, sir, if you please.

Jack had a great respect for a man who could show good sport with a pack of hounds. Dillon obviously knew a great deal about hunting, and about horses; yet it was strange he should mind so little about the noise his dogs made, for the cry of a tuneful pack

And now it was no longer a matter of people wilfully moving his electric torch, attempting to steal his drawing-pins, hiding his valuable rubber, malignantly dusting his mounds: now it was with a far deeper conviction, indeed with real distress, that he could say, "I should not wish my fame on to anyone, not even my worst enemy … it makes me physically ill … I protect myself as well as I can … I am barricaded behind double-locked doors day and night.

I am not in the least degree interested in women as such,' said Stephen. 'Only in persons.

It is as well, I grant you, that the family should have worn it beyond the memory of man; for your recent creations do not answer – they are nothing in comparison of your priest-king, whose merit is irrelevant, whose place cannot be disputed, nor made the subject of a recurring vote.

The dear Doctor was not leaving yet; he was going to indulge her by staying for a while; and this she said with a smile at Stephen, a smile that Jack intercepted and that gave him a blow as sharp and sudden as a pistol-shot. For although he might mistake signals addressed to himself he could scarcely be mistaken about those flying for another man.

What are bashed neeps? Neeps hackit with balmagowry.

Or take the Sophie,' cried the master, anxious to bring his crumb of comfort. 'She's rightly a brig, you know, Doctor, with her two masts.' He held up two fingers, in case a landman might not fully comprehend so great a number. 'But the minute Captain Aubrey sets foot in her, why, she too becomes a sloop; for a brig is a lieutenant's command.

These prints carry on naturally, perhaps inevitably, to Picasso's most important work of 1935, the "Minotauromachie.

while the officers in command of the regiments that must be moved are tolerably venal men, and we have ample funds at hand. Yet at the same time certain forms must still be observed: there must be persuasion, a gentle violence, before they can decently fall.

They ate an acceptable turbot – acceptable when the flour-and-water paste had been scraped off him – and then the steward brought in a ham. It was a ham that could only have come from a hog with a long-borne crippling disease, the sort of ham that is reserved for officers who buy their own provisions; and only a man versed in morbid anatomy could have carved it handsomely.

Insects might still delude Maturin and pierce his skin, but at this late stage it was difficult for women to do so.