The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey Quotes

“Besides, I long for men's company: the prattle of the little girls — much though I love them — drives me to an earlier and earlier breakfast, to a later and even later dinner, so that presently the two will meet, as they did in Avicenna's tale.”
― Patrick O'Brian, The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey

“There are, as you know better than I — far better, indeed, a good many of our people are . . .' Here he hesitated trying to find which was least offensive: Papists? Romans? Mumbo-Jumbo certainly would not do. People of the old faith sounded obsequious. 'Most of them are Irish, of course; though quite a few come from the English north country. And then there are the mere foreigners . . . that is to say, the foreigners.'
'There is something to be said for the word Catholics. It is in general use in Ireland.”
― Patrick O'Brian, The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey

“Yet if I am not mistaken we are likely to be there well before Lord Leyton - well before even your little squadron...'
'What the Devil do you mean by my little squadron? It is a perfectly normal squadron, rather large than otherwise. Two ships of the line apart from Suffolk: a fifty-gun ship, two considerable sloops of war . . .'
'Hush, hush, Jack. Never fly into a passion, soul,' cried Stephen, seeing that his friend was seriously annoyed. 'Sure you must know after all this time that we use little as an endearment - a meliorative term, as one says my little Puss to a handsome Amazon that weighs fifteen stone in her shift.”
― Patrick O'Brian, The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey

“...for a trifle of whiskey – you know the Irish drink, Stephen, I am sure?’

‘I have never heard of it,’ said Stephen.”
― Patrick O'Brian, The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey