The Black Swan Quotes

“Inshore, across the pellucid jade-green waters of the bay, gently ruffled by the north-easterly breeze that was sweetly tempering the torrid heat of the sun, rose the ramage of masts and spars of the shipping riding there at anchor.”
― Rafael Sabatini, The Black Swan

“In Major Sands the intelligence was absent; but like most men in his case he was not aware of it.”
― Rafael Sabatini, The Black Swan

“Woman is a fair image in a pool; he who leaps at her is sunk.”
― Rafael Sabatini, The Black Swan

“It is not. It has been decided for me. My past decides it. Unless I am to woo in disguise, pretending myself something that I am not. I have killed. I have plundered. I have done dreadful things, unutterable
things. I have even amassed some wealth. I own lands, in Jamaica and elsewhere, with plantations and the like. My proper mate among women would be some unfortunate soulless drab who would be indifferent to the source of the money that will support us. I am not so lost – lost though I may be – as to give such a mother to my children. Nor yet am I so lost as to presume to woo any woman of another kind. It is the only honesty remaining me; the last frail link with honour. If that were to snap, then should I be damned, indeed. No, no, sweet lady, whatever I may find to build in the Old World if I reach it, certainly it will not be a family.”
― Rafael Sabatini, The Black Swan

“Why, that most of the things we do in this life, we do from sheer necessity: to ease pain, remove discomfort, preserve our lives, or earn a livelihood. These are the chief activities that engage most men. Do you not agree?”
― Rafael Sabatini, The Black Swan

“He must remember that women were curious creatures, addicted to eccentricities of vision, allowing emotional influences to deflect the light of reason. There was no prevailing with them by hard common sense alone. It provoked their hostility.”
― Rafael Sabatini, The Black Swan