Quotes from Patrick O'Brian

Whether Mrs Williams liked her daughters at all was doubtful: she loved them, of course, and had 'sacrificed everything for them', but there was not much room in her composition for liking – it was too much taken up with being right

What was independence but a word? What did any form of government matter? Freedom: to do what?

Most men find [peace] entirely unlike what they had expected - like love...

The more a victory cost, the more it was esteemed.

Even the best-conducted women [...] have an aversion for the impotent," [...] so one should conceal one's wounds and hide the crippling deficiencies of life – poverty, misfortune, sickness, ill-success. People begin by being touched and moved to tenderness by their friends' distress; presently this changes to pity, which has something humiliating about it; then to a masterful giving of advice; and then to scorn.

saying nothing with the practiced ease of a politician

Officially the earliest age was eleven for officers' sons and thirteen for the rest, but no one took much notice of the regulation—seven-year-olds were not unknown.) Before

Almost all voyages, from that of Noah's Ark to the sending of the ships to Troy, have been marked by interminable delays, with false starts and turning wind and tide; perhaps the schooner Ringle was too slim and slight to count as a worthy adversary, because she gently sailed her anchor out of the ground and then bore away a little east of north with a wind that allowed her to spread every sail she possessed, other than those reserved for foul or very foul weather.

From a misanthrope Bacchus makes me sociable … Yet on the other hand I had already bowed and smiled; I had performed at least the motions of complaisancy; and how often have I not observed that the imitation begets the reality.

Good day to you, ma'am,' said Stephen, opening Mrs Wogan's door. 'I believe you may take some air at last. The sky is clear, the sun shines bright with a surprising warmth, and although our poop is now the scene of strange activity, the gangway remains, the windward, or weather gangway, ma'am. And we had best profit by the morning while it lasts.

Wittles is up' said Killick

If it is a question of trepanning, I am your man. It is an operation I have performed scores, nay hundreds of times without losing a patient. That is to say except in a very few cases of vicious cachexy, where it was only done to please the relations. I trepanned Mrs Butcher for a persistent migraine, and she has never complained since.

A virtuous esculent!

Well sir ... some of the officers are sweet on Mrs Oakes.' 'I dare say they are - a very amiable young woman.' 'No, sir. I mean serious - bloody serious - cut-your-throat serious - fucking serious ... 'Oh.' Jack Aubrey was taken aback entirely. 'But you surely do not mean that last word literally? 'No, sir. It is just my coarse way of speaking: I beg pardon.

Never be distressed, honey. I know her faults as well as any man.' 'Of course, she is very beautiful,' said Sophia, glancing at him timidly. 'Yes. Tell me, is Diana wholly in love with Jack?' 'I may be wrong,' she said, after a pause, 'I know very little about these things, or anything else; but I do not believe Diana knows what love is at all.

Take it easy, Teague,'said another. But Peter would not take it easy: he hesitated, trying to quell the wild indignation; but he failed; it possessed him, and with a furious shriek he hurled himself upon his country's oppressors.

it was in a way the world at the very beginning – the elements alone, and starlight.

There are some midshipmen who will never have the decency to lie down and die, whatever the circumstances. Because they are born to be hanged, no doubt,' added the lieutenant darkly.

was an officer holding out his sword

As you know very well,' said Stephen, 'I am in favour of leaving people alone, however imperfect their polity may seem. It appears to me that you must not tell other nations how to set their house in order; nor must you compel them to be happy. But I too am a naval officer, brother; long, long ago you taught me that anyone nourished on ship's biscuit must learn to choose the lesser of two weevils. On

He had been quite unprepared for this particular blow, striking under every conceivable kind of armour, and for some minutes he could hardly bear the pain, but sat there blinking in the sun. 'Christ,' he said at last. 'Another day.

Of course she will put on a cap,' said Sophie, with a pitying look. 'How could she possibly receive strange gentlemen without a cap? But her hair must be dressed under it.

men strike out their permanent characters; or have those characters struck into them

But it appears to me that for our patient truth is what he can persuade others to believe: yet at the same time he is a man of some parts, and I suspect that were you to attack him through his reason, were you to persuade him to abandon this self-defeating practice, with its anxiety, its probability of detection, and to seek only a more legitimate approval, then we should have no need for belladonna or any other anhidrotic.