Quotes from R.A. Dick

Oh, Lucia the captain said softly, you are so little and so lovely. how I would have liked to have taken you to Norway and shown you the fiords in the midnight sun, and to China- what you've missed, Lucia, by being born too late to travel the Seven Seas with me! And what I've missed, too.

Knowledge and book learning are not wisdom," said the captain. "Is this book wisdom?" asked Lucy, putting the manuscript back on the table. "It has some elements of wisdom in it, me dear," replied the captain. "I did not lead a very wise life myself but it was a full one and a grown-up one. You come to age very often through shipwreck and disaster, and at the heart of the whirlpool some men find God.

It was quiet in the room. Only the clock ticked on in the remorseless, mechanical minutes that men have made for themselves to measure away the joy and sadness of their earthly lives.

I am perfectly well and happy here.... All I want is to be left alone to live my life as I wish and not as other people think best for themselves.

And you will never be lonely either," said Anna. "You shall come and live with us." "No, darling," Lucy said quietly. Impossible to explain, even to Anna, that loneliness was not a matter of solitude but of the spirit and often much greater in company for that very reason.

Real love isn't blind, it sees everything and has an endless capacity for forgiving.

I must be very selfish, she thought, for I want to set nothing and no one right; all I want is to be left in peace to make what I can of this problem called life for myself and my children.

A sea-gull planed its way down to the water on curving, outstretched wings. The salt air blew coolly on her flushed cheeks, and she smiled to herself in her happiness.

Because, as I have told you so many times, I have no words to make you understand," said the captain. It' s all the beauty and serenity and nobility you have ever experienced on earth. It's all your grandest and most generous feelings, and the finest sunsets and greatest music- and then you' re only on the fringe of understanding.

I'm sorry... but it's true?you can't live other people's lives for them. Go home and make something worth while of your own.

I don't want to interfere with my children's lives any more than you do, but I want them to be happy. Must growing up always mean a breaking up?" she asked sadly. "No, but it often means a breaking away," the captain said. "And you wouldn't want them to stay anchored for the rest of their existence, growing barnacles all over them and rotting away with rust.

Can one be really happy at some one else's expense?

All these psalm-singing hypocrites who spend half their lives in church, imploring God Almighty to give them wings like doves to fly to Paradise, and when their friends get their wings, they smother themselves in black crape and refer to the departed as 'poor'—there's no consistency in it and no sense!

How much greater and more lasting the work of man's hands and mind was than man himself. Looking up at the exquisite tracery of the vaulted roof, listening to the majestic music pealing up to join it, she felt dwarfed and humble, yet raised up in spirit beyond her own little ant hill of living.

el amor verdadero no es ciego, lo ve todo y es infinitamente indulgente

Loneliness was not a matter of solitude but of the spirit and often much greater in company for that very reason.

Era imposible de explicar, ni siquiera a Anna, que sentirse solo no tenía nada que ver con la soledad, sino con el espíritu, y que por esa misma razón esa sensación se veía agravada a menudo estando en compañía.

We are always afraid of the unknown.

Not that her life had been unhappy, it had just not been her life at all.

she covered her ears with her hands, for fear that old custom of obeying other people's plans for her should prevail yet again.

admitting the ultimate defeat of the spirit in self-imposed death.

Damn it, my language is most controlled, madam," said Captain Gregg stiffly, "and as for my morals, I can assure you that no woman has ever been the worse in body or pocket for knowing me, and I'd like to know how many mealy-mouthed psalm-singers can say the same. I've lived a man's life and I'm not ashamed of it, but I've always tried to tell the truth and shame the devil.

Like most women you are riddled with the missionary instinct, that always seeks to change a man's nature and make it a little higher than the angels; whereas a man knows he can't remake any woman, and if his wife doesn't suit him, he accepts her as she is or goes out and finds another.