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Patrick O Brian Inspirational Quotes (23)

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The sensation of falling into the past is not unlike that of coming home for the holidays.
Patrick O'Brian
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For very strangely his officers looked upon Jack Aubrey as a moral figure, in spite of all proofs of the contrary...
Patrick O'Brian
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I have often observed that extremely violent noise and activity go with good-fellowship and heightened spirits.
Patrick O'Brian
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When you're taking a fence on a horse, you don't think much your body does all the thinking, and you're over or you're not over. It's much the same when you are doing a tricky thing with a pen. There are times when I'm writing very, very fast.
Patrick O'Brian
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Wit is the unexpected copulation of ideas.
Patrick O'Brian
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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.
Patrick O'Brian
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But the tale or narrative set in the past may have its particular time-free value and the candid reader will not misunderstand me, will not suppose that I intend any preposterous comparison, when I observe that Homer was farther removed in time from Troy than I am from the Napoleonic wars yet he spoke to the Greeks for 2,000 years and more.
Patrick O'Brian
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After all a book can be represented as a conversation with one’s demon.
Patrick O'Brian
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Other people's marriages are a perpetual source of amazement.
Patrick O'Brian
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Sir,’ said Stephen, ‘I read novels with the utmost pertinacity. I look upon them--I look upon good novels--as a very valuable part of literature, conveying more exact and finely-distinguished knowledge of the human heart and mind than almost any other, with greater breadth and depth and fewer constraints.
Patrick O'Brian
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We are always the most violent against those whom we have injured.
Patrick O'Brian
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It is a great while since I felt the grind of bone under my saw,' he added, smiling with anticipation.
Patrick O'Brian
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That would be locking the horse after the stable door is gone, a very foolish thing to do.
Patrick O'Brian
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Why there you are, Stephen,' cried Jack. 'You are come home, I find.' That is true,' said Stephen with an affectionate look: he prized statements of this kind in Jack.
Patrick O'Brian
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For my own part,' said Captain Aubrey, 'I have no notion of disliking a man for his beliefs, above all if he was born with them. I find I can get along very well with Jews or even...' The P of Papists was already formed, and the word was obliged to come out as Pindoos.
Patrick O'Brian
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They will not be pleased. But they know we must catch the monsoon with a well-found ship and 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 either. I mean--I wish you would not confuse my mind, Stephen.
Patrick O'Brian
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The Navy speaks in symbols and you may suit what meaning you choose to the words.
Patrick O'Brian
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No man born of woman has ever understood spoken Portuguese.
Patrick O'Brian
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I know of few men over 50 that seem to me entirely human, virtually none who has long exercised authority.
Patrick O'Brian
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We understood one another better before ever I opened my mouth
Patrick O'Brian
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Never mind manoeuvres, always go at them.
Patrick O'Brian
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My dear creature, I have done with all debate. But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word and one that generally comes to mean either MY COUNTRY, RIGHT OR WRONG, which is infamous, or MY COUNTRY IS ALWAYS RIGHT, which is imbecile.
Patrick O'Brian
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Stephen had spared no expense in making himself more unhappy, his own position as a rejected lover clearer.
Patrick O'Brian