David Charnick > David's Quotes

“Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“He that would make a pun would pick a pocket.”
― Patrick O'Brian

“Gluppit the prawling strangles, there!”
― Patrick O'Brian

“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

“If I were a woman I should march out with a flaming torch and a sword; I should emasculate right and left.”
― Patrick O'Brian, The Far Side of the World

“A virtuous esculent!”
― Patrick O'Brian

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

“Compulsion is the death of friendship.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Post Captain

“The back of my hand to guilt.”
― Patrick O'Brian, The Far Side of the World

“That would be locking the horse after the stable door is gone, a very foolish thing to do.”
― Patrick O'Brian, The Far Side of the World

“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, Master & Commander