Gideon Defoe > Quotes

“Here's your first problem," he said, pointing at a sentence. "'Religion is the opium of the people.' Well, I don't know about people, but I think you'll find that the opium of pirates is actual opium.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists

“I should say we’d reach England by Tuesday or thereabouts, with a decent wind behind us. It would be a lot quicker than that if we could just sail straight there, but I was looking at the nautical charts, and there’s a dirty great sea serpent right in the middle of the ocean! It has a horrible gaping maw and one of those scaly tails that looks like it could snap a boat clean in two. So I thought it best to sail around that.’

FitzRoy frowned. ‘I think they just draw those on maps to add a bit of decoration. It doesn’t actually mean there’s a sea serpent there.’

The galley went rather quiet. A few of the pirate crew stared intently out of the portholes, embarrassed at their Captain’s mistake. But to everyone’s relief, instead of running somebody through, the Pirate Captain just narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.

That explains a lot,’ he said. ‘I suppose it’s also why we’ve never glimpsed that giant compass in the corner of the Atlantic. I have to say, I’m a little disappointed.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists

“Don't listen to people telling you that getting up early is best. René Descartes is one of history's most important philosophers, but he rarely got out of bed before noon - and when he started getting up early for a new job as a private tutor, it caused him to catch pneumonia and die.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! in an Adventure with Communists

“That explains a lot,' he said. 'I suppose it's also why we've never glimpsed that giant compass in the corner of the Atlantic. I have to say, I'm a little disappointed.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists

“If the pirate with a scarf had been more poetically minded he’d have thought that her eyes were like a thousand emeralds, glittering in a far-off pirate treasure chest. But he wasn’t, so he just thought that she had really really green eyes, a bit like seaweed.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists

“Don’t look so worried. I’ve sailed the seven seas, and I’ve never had an unsuccessful adventure yet!”

“Really? You’ve sailed all seven seas?” asked Darwin admiringly.

“Every last one!”

“What are the seven seas? I’ve always wondered.”

“Aaarrr. Well, let’s see…” said the Pirate Captain, scratching his craggy forehead. “There’s the North Sea. And that other one, the one near Mozambique. And…what’s that one in Hyde Park?”

“The Serpentine?”

“That’s the one. How many’s that then? Three. Um. There’s the sea with all the rocks in it…I think they call it Sea Number Four. Then that would leave…uh…Grumpy and Sneezy…”

Darwin was starting to look a little less impressed.

“Would you look at that big seagull!” said the Pirate Captain, quickly ducking into a beach hut.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists

“I would like to tell you that I wrote my book to push back artistic boundaries. But I didn't. I wrote it to impress a girl.”
― Gideon Defoe

“Anyhow,' one of the scientists was saying to another, 'there simply isn't room in the museum's Fishes Hall , so we've decided to pretend to the public that a whale is actually a mammal without any legs. It's patently ridiculous - I mean to say, just look at the thing, it's a gigantic fish if ever you saw one - but mum's the word! In my experience the public will believe just about anything, so long as you write it down on a little piece of card.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists

“Just then there came the wheezy sound of an accordion. It was an odd little tune that, had he been alive exactly one hundred and fifty years later, the scarf-wearing pirate would have recognized as the first few bars from ‘Theme to Murder, She Wrote’.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists

“Babbage's Three Laws of Difference Engines

First Law: A difference engine must have at least six cogs.

Second Law: A difference engine must be able to operate a loom.

Third law: A difference engine must be able to kill a man, should the mood so take it.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with the Romantics

“You don't know what it is to live and laugh and love and run a man through! You've never tasted salty air on your tongue or waved heartily at a mermaid!”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with the Romantics

“There was soot and orphans everywhere, and gaslit cobbled streets full of fog and sinister gentlemen out for a night of illicit murder. It was a strict and unforgiving society; looking at a piano, eating too much butter, dancing with elan--the sour-faced Queen Victoria forbade all these things. And, it was also raining in the London of themdays--dirty grey slabs of rain that left everywhere shining and slippery.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists

“I really didn't write it with any intention of being published. If I'd known that was going to happen, I would have written something more sensible, because now I have to dress up as a pirate for book signings... I would have done a novel about a man who hangs around with a gaggle of models.”
― Gideon Defoe

“I’m making a list of when it’s acceptable for a pirate to cry. […] So far I’ve got: one - when holding a seagull covered in oil. Two - when singing a shanty that reminds him of orphans. Three - when confronted with the unremitting loneliness of the human condition. Four - chops. I’ve just written the word ‘chops’. Not really sure where I was going with that one. Any ideas?”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab

“It would be a lot quicker than that if we could just sail straight there, but I was looking at the nautical charts, and there’s a dirty great sea serpent right in the middle of the ocean!

FitzRoy frowned. “I think they just draw those on maps to add a bit of decoration. It doesn’t actually mean there’s a sea serpent there.”

The galley went rather quiet. A few of the pirate crew stared intently out of the portholes, embarrassed at their Captain’s mistake. But to everyone’s relief, instead of running somebody through, the Pirate Captain just narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.

“That explains a lot,” he said. “I suppose it’s also why we’ve never glimpsed that giant compass in the corner of the Atlantic. I have to say, I’m a little disappointed.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists

“You can't reduce passion and flair and eating ham to numbers, sir!”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with the Romantics

“It’s not really my fault. The problem is that my mouth just comes out with these things. And you can’t blame me for what my mouth does, can you? Curse this mouth. Do you think it might be possessed?'

The Pirate Captain looked in the mirror and made his mouth into a series of shapes he thought looked demonic.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure With Napoleon

“The pirates left the boat in the Thames, next to the Palace of Westminster. They deliberately parked across two disabled spaces, because that kind of behaviour was pretty much the whole point of being a pirate.”
― Gideon Defoe

“It was about as close as you could get to the platonic ideal of a ham, if Plato had spent more time discussing hams and less time mucking about with triangles.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab

“Korsan olmanın en güzel yanı, dedi gutlu korsan, yağmacılıktır.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists & The Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab

“Everybody clapped enthusiastically and Dr. Marx popped up from behind the podium, where he had been hiding all along. He was the hairiest man the pirates had ever seen. Several of the crew were actually worried for a moment that the Seaweed That Walked Like a Man had returned from one of their previous adventures to ambush them. His nose was hairy. His forehead was hairy. Even his hands were hairy. And his beard was a great bushy black number, which looked like he had sellotaped a bunch of cats to the bottom of his face and then frightened them with a loud noise.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists

“They both fell silent. For a while the only sound they could hear was the noise of books resting on shelves, which wasn’t really enough of a sound to distract them from the awkwardness of the moment.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with the Romantics

“FIT GIRL,' said the hen. Misha and Phoebe stared at each other. They stared back at the hen again. 'BITCHES GONNA BITCH,' said the hen”
― Gideon Defoe, Elite Dangerous: Docking is Difficult

“The Captain was wearing his best blousey shirt, his beard was gleaming in the early morning light and he’d polished all his gold teeth. As he strode manfully towards the shore, the only thing that could have make him look even more heroic that he already did would have been the theme to Flash Gordon playing in the background, but it was a hundred and seventy years too early for that.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure With Napoleon

“Hello, comrades,’ said Engels.

‘Hello, Engels,’ replied the communists.

‘Any capitalist spies in tonight?’

A few men with stuck-on beards waved.

‘Would you mind leaving?’ asked Engels politely. ‘We’ve nothing to hide, it’s just that there aren’t enough chairs and some real communists are having to stand at the back. Thanks.’

The spies left cheerfully, and Engels pressed on.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists

“The Pirate Captain cut an impressive figure. If you were to compare him to a type of tree – and working out what sort of tree they would be if they were trees instead of pirates was easily one of the crew’s favourite pastimes – he would undoubtedly be an oak, or maybe a horse chestnut. He was all teeth and curls, but with a pleasant open face; his coat was of a better cut than everybody else’s, and his beard was fantastic and glossy, and the ends of it were twisted with expensive-looking ribbons. Living at sea tended to leave you with ratty, matted hair, but the Pirate Captain somehow kept his beard silky and in good condition, and though nobody knew his secret, they all respected him for it. They also respected him because it was said he was wedded to the sea. A lot of pirates claimed that they were wedded to the sea, but usually this was an excuse because they couldn’t get a girlfriend or they were a gay pirate, but in the Pirate Captain’s case none of his crew doubted he was actually wedded to the sea for a minute. Any of his men would have gladly taken a bullet for him, or even the pointy end of a cutlass. The Pirate Captain didn’t need to do much more than clear his throat and roll his eyes a bit to stop the fighting dead in its tracks.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists

“It's like my old Aunt Joan always used to say: if you're going to end up fighting monsters, Pirate Captain, try to stick to ventriloquist's dummies who have gone alive.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with the Romantics

“The Pirate Captain found himself thinking back to an earlier adventure with Freemasons, and a little plan formed in his piratical brain.

‘Goodness me, a bit hot in here, isn’t it? Don’t mind if I loosen these clothes a little?’ he said, pulling open his coat and starting to unbutton his shirt. ‘Oh look, there’s my nipple,’ he added, licking his finger, winking conspiratorially at the policeman and rubbing his hairy chest a bit for good measure. The policeman just frowned, and the Pirate Captain suddenly remembered that he might have been confusing his adventure with Freemasons with his adventure with pole dancers. He sheepishly did his shirt back up.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists

“Oh, bother. I thought we could go to the opera,’ said the pirate with long legs. ‘I’m told this Wagner thing is brilliant.’

‘I’d rather stay on the boat and knock nails into my head,’ said the Pirate Captain sternly.

He paused to watch some children sailing toy boats on the lake. Then he kicked at a stone and gave a little cheer when it hit and sank one of them.

‘I know that seemed a little harsh,’ the Captain said, catching the looks some of his men were giving him, ‘but think of it as maintaining my image. In today’s fickle media climate I can’t risk becoming yesterday’s notorious buccaneer. There are thousands of aspiring pirate captains out there.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists

“The Captain’s boat inspections were always pretty slapdash, because they mainly just involved him looking at the ropes and planks and barnacles and then nodding to show that he approved of whatever they happened to be doing.”
― Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with the Romantics