Captain Sir Roddy, R.N. (Ret.) > Captain Sir Roddy, R.N. (Ret.)'s Quotes

“It is...highly probable that from the very beginning, apart from death, the only ironclad rule of human experience has been the Law of Unintended Consequences.”
― Ian Tattersall, Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins

“True originality consists not in a new manner, but in a new vision.”
― Edith Wharton, The Writing of Fiction

“Wise words are like arrows flung at your forehead. What do you do? Why, you duck of course.”
― Steven Erikson, House of Chains

“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“Why is it that a woman can see from a distance what a man cannot see close?”
― Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native

“Children are dying."
Lull nodded. "That's a succinct summary of humankind, I'd say. Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those three words.”
― Steven Erikson, Deadhouse Gates

“The poetry of the earth is never dead.”
― John Keats

“Destiny is a lie. Destiny is justification for atrocity. It is the means by which murderers armour themselves against reprimand. It is a word intended to stand in place of ethics, denying all moral context.”
― Steven Erikson, Midnight Tides

“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, The Nutmeg of Consolation

“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, H.M.S. Surprise

“Who would not spout the family teapot in order to talk with Keats for an hour about poetry, or with Jane Austen about the art of fiction?”
― Virginia Woolf, The Captain's Death Bed and Other Essays

“but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.”
― Jane Austen

“I say, Gibson, we're old friends, and you're a fool if you take anything I say as an offence. Madam your wife and I did not hit it off the only time I ever saw her. I won't say she was silly, but I think one of us was silly, and it was not me.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters

“Books are the mirrors of the soul.”
― Virginia Woolf, Between the Acts

“Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“And, above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you very much at your own reckoning.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Small House at Allington

“What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?...Was ever anything so civil?”
― Anthony Trollope, The Warden

“That I can read and be happy while I am reading, is a great blessing.”
― Anthony Trollope

“To have her meals, and her daily walk, and her fill of novels, and to be left alone, was all that she asked of the gods.”
― Anthony Trollope, The Eustace Diamonds

“A piece of writing is like a piece of magic. You create something out of nothing.”
― Susanna Clarke

“Better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad”
― Christina Rossetti, Pre-Raphaelite Poetry: An Anthology

“I hate posterity - it's so fond of having the last word.”
― Saki, Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches

“My heart is like a singing bird.”
― Christina Rossetti

“Go and see whether the Doctor is about,’ said Jack, ‘and if he is, ask him to look in, when he has a moment.’
Which he is in the fish-market, turning over some old-fashioned lobsters. No. I tell a lie. That is him, falling down the companion-way and cursing in foreign.”
― Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen

“A man's silence is wonderful to listen to.”
― thomas hardy

“You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday don't count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else.”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

“The lesson of history is that no one learns.”
― Steven Erikson, Deadhouse Gates

“I think... if it is true that
there are as many minds as there
are heads, then there are as many
kinds of love as there are hearts.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“The future can ever promise but one thing and one thing only: surprises.”
― Steven Erikson

“First in , Last out.


Motto of the bridgeburners”
― Steven Erikson, Memories of Ice