Justin Scott > Quotes

“You can do everything right, strictly according to procedure, on the ocean, and it'll still kill you, but if you're a good navigator, at least you'll know where you were when you died.

(In "The Nautical Chart" by Arturo Perez-Reverte)”
― Justin Scott, The Shipkiller

“He imagined this was the sort of shadow battle Queen Elizabeth had fought her entire reign—starting as a young woman alone, besieged by foreign kings and English nobles who would marry her crown, always steps behind grizzled courtiers like Lord Burghley. No! Rarely steps behind. She was steps ahead or she would never have survived so long.”
― Justin Scott, The Sister Queens

“Or he might be a free lance representing IRA provisionals, or the German Red Army, or Italian Red Brigade, or Palestinians.”
― Justin Scott, The Shipkiller

“It came to me on the wing."

"As would a hawk ripping a pigeon.”
― Justin Scott, The Sister Queens

“I reached under the seat for my radar detector, which is thoroughly and completely illegal in the state of Connecticut, and floored it.”
― Justin Scott, HardScape

“For most roles the playmaker has to hunt words to put in their mouths. With Falstaff I run alongside him, scratching what he says in my table-book.”
― Justin Scott, The Sister Queens

“She looked out at the sea, then behind them. Her body went rigid in his arms. “Oh, my God!” Hardin turned and stared. A black steel wall filled the horizon.”
― Justin Scott, The Shipkiller

“Will plowed through speeches that knew no end and scenes as slow as elephants. He plumbed verbal abysses for some hint of wit. He sought action, found oceans of incidents, and sought in vain information unknown to alehouse gossips. Flesh to bones? It had no vigor of bone, only flesh—a gross, quivering, unfinished creature entirely lacking in its skeleton.”
― Justin Scott, The Sister Queens

“To land. May it fall where it ought.”
― Justin Scott, The Shipkiller

“The law is largely an orderly process of redress.”
― Justin Scott, The Shipkiller

“We are a legitimate nation and legitimate nations do not underwrite piracy on the high seas.”
― Justin Scott, The Shipkiller

“Whenever it served the Mossad,”
― Justin Scott, The Shipkiller

“I am no man's tool.”
― Justin Scott, The Sister Queens

“dished his taste in furniture—yecho-modern; his horses—swaybacked;”
― Justin Scott, HardScape

“eleven degrees fifteen minutes and ten seconds east, and thirty degrees, twenty-nine minutes south”
― Justin Scott, The Shipkiller

“Upper quadrant. Twelve o’clock. A bright-green light. A wave? A glitch? It faded. But when the bow rose it blossomed again. Hardin stared—his excitement mounting—gauging its intensity, willing it not to be a wave, gradually realizing that a wave couldn’t last so long,”
― Justin Scott, The Shipkiller

“The number of ships that lie on the seabed since time beginning is in the millions.”
― Justin Scott, The Shipkiller

“Most powerful men, and all critics, secretly hated poets because the poets' ability to deliver the muse's merchandise made them noble as gods. The dismal fools can't imagine what it's like to thank God at the end of an endless night for a short row of words that come vaguely close to what you had hoped to say the day before.”
― Justin Scott, The Sister Queens

“there were many old people in our congregation who had been raised to believe that Catholics kept guns in their churches for the day the Pope would order war on the Protestants.”
― Justin Scott, HardScape

“What a word, Will! Vandalized! Did you just make that up?"

"It was you who spoke of Vandals, sir."

"Yes, I did! An excellent word.”
― Justin Scott, The Sister Queens

“I like things clear. That’s why I like sailing. What the ocean wants, the ocean gets. And if you feel the need to be absolutely right about something, you can polish your navigation. You can do everything right, strictly according to procedure, on the ocean, and it’ll still kill you; but if you’re a good navigator, at least you’ll know where you were when you died.”
― Justin Scott, The Shipkiller

“Will had long ago learned not to interrupt when an admirer described his play as if the poet was hearing the plot for the first time.”
― Justin Scott, The Sister Queens