Master And Commander Quotes

“Come all you thoughtless young men,
a warning take by me
And never leave your happy homes
to sail the raging sea.”
― Patrick O'Brian, The Far Side of the World

“How wonderfully strange,' he thought, 'to be upset by this trifle; yet I am upset.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Master & Commander

“It was an operation that Dr. Maturin had carried out at sea before, always in the fullest possible light and therefore on deck, and many of them had seen him do so.

Now they and all their mates saw him do it again: they saw Joe Plaice's scalp taken off, his skull bared, a disc of bone audibly sawn out, the handle turning solemnly; a three-shilling piece, hammered into a flattened dome by the armourer, screwed on over the hole; and the scalp replaced, neatly sewn up by the parson.

It was extremely gratifying - the Captain had been seen to go pale, and Barret Bonden too, the patient's cousin - blood running down Joe's neck regardless - brains clearly to be seen - something not to be missed for a mint of money - instructive, too - and they made the most of it.”
― Patrick O'Brian

“Since the sheets were half-flown the sails instantly split at the seams, the maintopsail shaking so furiously that the masthead must have gone had not Mowett, the bosun, Bonden, Warley the captain of the maintop and three of his men gone aloft, laid out on the ice-coated yard and cut the sail away close to the reefs.

Warley was on the lee yardarm when the footrope gave way under him and he fell, plunging far clear of the side and instantly vanishing in the terrible sea.”
― Patrick O'Brian, The Far Side of the World

“Hollom was going forward along the larboard gangway: Nagel, an able seamen but one of the most sullen, bloody-minded and argumentative of the Defenders, was coming aft on the same narrow passage. They were abreast of one another; and Nagel walked straight on without the slightest acknowledgement other than a look of elaborate unconcern.”
― Patrick O'Brian, The Far Side of the World