Patrick O'Brian

Compulsion is the death of friendship.

— Patrick O'Brian

“I am so happy that you saw your epop.”

— Patrick O'Brian

“Wittles is up' said Killick”

— Patrick O'Brian

Wit is the unexpected copulation of ideas.

— Patrick O'Brian

I sew his ears on from time to time, sure.

— Patrick O'Brian

“Sheep ain't poetical.”

— Patrick O'Brian

Jack, you've debauched my sloth.

— Patrick O'Brian

“The back of my hand to guilt.”

— Patrick O'Brian

“I should send my bees ashore for you, upon my sacred honour.”

— Patrick O'Brian

After all a book can be represented as a conversation with one’s demon.

— Patrick O'Brian

That would be locking the horse after the stable door is gone, a very foolish thing to do.

— Patrick O'Brian

The sensation of falling into the past is not unlike that of coming home for the holidays.

— Patrick O'Brian

“You do not mean there is danger of peace?", cried Jack.”

— Patrick O'Brian

... it has always seemed to me that books are the supreme decorations of a room

— Patrick O'Brian

“I've come down from the mountains, with an ass-full of specimens...”

— Patrick O'Brian

“Any innocent pleasure is a real good: there are not so many of them.”

— Patrick O'Brian

Likings arise when one has no earthly reason for liking - the most wildly improbable marriages and uncommon friendship.

— Patrick O'Brian

In my case, I write in the past because I'm not really part of the present. I have nothing valid to say…

— Patrick O'Brian

“It all gave a pleasant illusion of eternity, this quiet sailing under a perfect sky towards a horizon perpetually five miles ahead,…

— Patrick O'Brian

“Never mind the disappointment. Salt water will wash it away. You will be amazed how unimportant it will seem in a week’s…

— Patrick O'Brian

I know of few men over 50 that seem to me entirely human, virtually none who has long exercised authority.

— Patrick O'Brian

Why there you are, Stephen,' cried Jack. 'You are come home, I find.' That is true,' said Stephen with an affectionate look:…

— Patrick O'Brian

...for very strangely his officers looked upon Jack Aubrey as a moral figure, in spite of all proofs of the contrary...

— Patrick O'Brian

“What's wrong with (Captain) Jack Aubrey?" "Everything, since he has a command and I have not.”

— Patrick O'Brian

“Martin was a thoroughly amiable man, a man of wide reading, but when he came to write he mounted upon a pair…

— Patrick O'Brian

“Hollom was going forward along the larboard gangway: Nagel, an able seamen but one of the most sullen, bloody-minded and argumentative of…

— Patrick O'Brian

They will not be pleased. But they know we must catch the monsoon with a well-found ship; and they know they are…

— Patrick O'Brian

“There is nothing that interests me more than travel, I declare; and if I had had my health, I should have been…

— Patrick O'Brian

“And although in many cases these unions proved happy enough, sailors being excellent husbands, often away and handy about the house when…

— Patrick O'Brian

“Nothing do I know of the law at all. But I do remember that the Bible likens human justice to a woman’s…

— Patrick O'Brian

“I do not like to sound discontented neither,' said Pullings, 'nor to crab any ship I belong to; but between you and…

— Patrick O'Brian

“All your sea-omens are of disaster; and of course, with man in his present unhappy state, huddled together in numbers far too…

— Patrick O'Brian

“Mr Babbington,' he said, suddenly stopping in his up and down. 'Take your hands out of your pockets. When did you last…

— Patrick O'Brian

“As it usually happened after an engagement, a heavy sadness was coming down over his spirits. To some degree it was the…

— Patrick O'Brian

“Physically he was tired and his body relaxed throughout its entire length; his mind was in much the same state, floating free,…

— Patrick O'Brian

“They were furious. Did he not know he might catch cold? Why did he not answer their hail? It was no good…

— Patrick O'Brian

You are to consider that a certain melancholy and often a certain irascibility accompany advancing age: indeed it might be said that…

— Patrick O'Brian

“The event caused a certain amount of ribaldry and a fair number of sentences depriving men of their grog for playing the…

— Patrick O'Brian

Authority is a solvent of humanity: look at any husband, any father of a family,and note the absorption of the person by…

— Patrick O'Brian

“Many complaints about his lack of discipline – independence – disobeying orders. No future in the service for that kind of officer,…

— Patrick O'Brian