Quotes from Jack London

He must master or be mastered; while to show mercy was a weakness. Mercy did not exist in the primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such misunderstandings made for death. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten. was the law; and this mandate, down out of the depths of Time, he obeyed.

Why didn't you dare it before? he asked harshly. When I hadn't a job? When I was starving? When I was just as I am now, as a man, as an artist, the same Martin Eden?

The dark circle became a dot on the moon-flooded snow as Spitz disappeared from view.

He did not playfully shake him, as was his wont, or murmur soft love curses; but he whispered in his ear.'As you love me, Buck. As you love me,' was what he whispered. --Call of the Wild

The dominant primordial beast was strong in Buck

Buck's senses got here again to him

He who steals my purse steals my right to live, was the reply, old saws to the contrary. For he steals my bread and meat and bed, and in doing so imperils my life.

I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet." - Jack London

For the last time in his life he allowed passion to usurp cunning and reason

and from that moment Buck hated him with a bitter and deathless hatred.

Love, genuine passionate love, was his for the first time. This he had never experienced at Judge Miller's down in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley. With the Judge's sons, hunting and tramping, it had been a working partnership; with the Judge's grandsons, a sort of pompous guardianship; and with the Judge himself, a stately and dignified friendship. But love that was feverish and burning, that was adoration, that was madness, it had taken John Thornton to arouse.

It was during this period that he might have hearkened to the memories of the lair and the stream and run back to the Wild. But the memory of his mother held him...So he remained in his bondage waiting for her.

In short, Beauty Smith was a monstrosity, and the blame of it lay elsewhere. He was not responsible. The clay of him had been moulded in the making.

Sometimes they went hungry, sometimes they feasted riotously, all according to the abundance of game and the fortune of hunting.

men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles by which to toil, and furry coats to protect them from the frost.

Between us and the bottom of the sea was less than an inch of wood. And yet, I aver it, and I aver it again, I was unafraid.

Growth is life, and life is for ever destined to make for light.

Culture and collars had gone together, to him, and he had been deceived into believing that college educations and mastery were the same things.

Chafing at custom's chain;

Do you know that the only value life has is what life puts upon itself? And it is of course over-estimated, since it is a necessity prejudiced in its own favor. ...There is plenty more life demanding to be born. ...He was worth nothing to the world. The supply is too large.

He had a way of taking Buck's head roughly between his hands, and resting his own head upon Buck's, of shaking him back and forth, the while calling him ill names that to Buck were love names. Buck knew no greater joy than that rough embrace and the sound of murmured oaths, and at each jerk back and forth it seemed that his heart would be shaken out of his body so great was its ecstasy.

I was not made for the desk and counting-house, for petty business squabbling, and legal jangling.

Man always gets less than he demands from life; and so little do they demand, that the less than little they get cannot save them.

Strength is an empty shell. One cannot violate the promptings of one's nature without having that nature recoil upon itself. Show me a man with a tattoo, and I'll show you a man with an interesting past.