Quotes from Patrick O'Brian

I do hope Diana don't savage Henage on the way back,' said Jack, 'You might not think it, but he is a very sensitive cove, and he feels harsh words extremely. I remember when his father called him a vile concupiscent waste-thrift whoremonger he brooded over it the whole evening.

Word of all this had reached Diana, an unusually passionate, impulsive woman; she had written to him in unusually passionate, impulsive terms and his letter was designed to do away with her resentment of what she saw not as immoral conduct (she had no particular objection to immoral conduct) but as an intolerable public affront.

They might not be beautiful, but they were certainly suffering.

I have noticed that some old men lose their sense of honour, and will cheerfully avow the strangest acts.

Jack Aubrey pushed back his chair, loosened his waistcoat, and said, 'I had no idea I was so hungry: I am afraid I must have eaten like an ogre.' Killick could be seen to smile: Jack's appetite always pleased him - his one deviation into amiability. 'Oh come,' said Maturin. 'Six mutton chops is not at all excessive in a man of your weight: an abstemious ogre would call it moderation.

The officer chiefly concerned, Mr Pullings, or the Maiden as the Kutaliotes called him because of his mild face and gentle manners, had but to hint that a wall, outhouse, chimney, dovecote might be in the way for it to vanish, plucked down if not by its owners then by his neighbours and the rest of the community.

He was smiling openly when Stephen walked in, looking shrewish. Like many large, florid, good-natured men, Jack Aubrey was afflicted with an undue proportion of small pale, meagre friends of a shrewish turn.

There is something wonderfully comfortable about having a lady's legs under one's table, Aubrey.

he felt the effect of the wine well before his glass was emptied - a very slight swimming in his head, the faint birth of a certain benignity, a willingness to be pleased with his company.

Or take me,' said Jack. 'I am called captain, but really I am only a master and commander.

It was true that a few years ago some wild enthusiast, a Whiggish civilian no doubt, had decreed that day should start at midnight; but Jack, though a scientific, forwardlooking officer, agreed with many of his fellow-captains in giving this foolish innovation no countenance whatsoever: besides, it had taken him years to persuade Stephen that nautical days really did start at noon, and he did not want his imperfect conviction to be shaken in any way at all.

they know they are in the Navy – they have chosen their cake, and must lie on it.' 'You mean, they cannot have their bed and eat it.' 'No, no, it is not quite that, neither.

should very much like to see your excrement.' 'You shall, my dear sir, you shall.

A man's pillow is his best medicine

It occurred to him that she had spent these last few years entirely among men, seeing no women apart from a few like Louisa Wogan; she spoke rather as men, and somewhat raffish, moneyed, loose-living men, speak when they are alone together. 'She has forgotten the distinction between what can and what cannot be said,' he reflected. 'A few more years of this company, and she would not scruple to fart.

Still, the farther hills remained as untouched as the sea; high, remote, arid, dark and sterile, poisoned with the sun.

Two blue jackets, sir, one pea jacket, two pair of blue trousers, two pair of shoes, six shirts, four pairs of stockings, two Guernsey frocks, two hats, two black Barcelona handkerchiefs, a comforter, several pair of flannel . . .' he blushed and in a low voice said 'drawers. And two waistcoats; as well as one bed, one pillow, two blankets and two hammocks

Jack broke off. He had seen a very great deal of drunkenness in the Navy; drunken admirals, post-captains, commanders, drunken ship's boys ten years old, and he had been trundled aboard on a wheelbarrow himself before now; but he disliked it on duty – he disliked it very much indeed, above all at such an hour in the morning.

Put those pistols down at once,' he said coldly. 'Do not you know it is very rude to point a pistol at a person you do not mean to kill? For shame, Villiers. Where were you brought up?

Calligraphy," said Plato, "is the physical manifestation of an architecture of the soul." That being so, mine must be a turf-and-wattle kind of soul, since my handwriting would be disowned by a backward cat; whereas yours, particularly on your charts, has a most elegant flow and clarity, the outward form of a soul that might have conceived the Parthenon.

Injustice is a rule of the service, as you know very well; and since you have to have a good deal of undeserved abuse, you might just as well have it from your friends.

Since then he has said nothing and although from time to time I have thrown out what I hope were delicate hints and suggestions he has not seemed to notice them; and with a man Lucifer could not hold a book, bell or candle to for pride I cannot raise the subject directly.

I dare say they are hauling away the cat before hooking on the fish.' Pocock said, 'Perhaps they will stopper with a dog.' Stephen said, 'It is my belief that they have raised a mouse, and that having seized it with a fox they will clap on a lizard.

One lives in the very present moment; lives intently. There is no urge to be doing: being is the highest good.