Brian O'nolan Quotes & Sayings

Should I feel better if I were to vomit?' asked Jagiello. 'I doubt it,' said Stephen. 'It has done nothing for the Colonel. — Patrick O'Brian

Why there you are, Stephen,' cried Jack. 'You are come home, I find.'
That is true,' said Stephen with an affectionate look: he prized statements of this kind in Jack. — Patrick O'Brian

She is remarkably dry,' he said to Stephen who, preferring to die in the open, had crept up on deck, — Patrick O'Brian

I know of few men over 50 that seem to me entirely human, virtually none who has long exercised authority. — Patrick O'Brian

The great thing about playing team sport is you win and lose together, and the pain is never as bad when you share it. — Brian O'Driscoll

It is unjust to provoke a man and then to complain he is a satyr if the provocation succeeds. You — Patrick O'Brian

He had been quite unprepared for this particular blow, striking under every conceivable kind of armour, and for some minutes he could hardly bear the pain, but sat there blinking in the sun. 'Christ,' he said at last. 'Another day. — Patrick O'Brian

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

He reflected on his hitherto reflection that soldiers and sailors were, upon the whole, quite different creatures. 'And perhaps they are, too: yet perhaps drink, in very large quantities, may make the difference less evident. — Patrick O'Brian

You cannot say things one week and then behave differently. — Brian O'Driscoll

After all a book can be represented as a conversation with one's demon. — Patrick O'Brian

Wondering just how Mr Church thought he had deserved anything short of impalement, Stephen walked into the cabin. — Patrick O'Brian

I'm an eternal optimist. — Brian O'Driscoll

In your mid-20s, you think you'll go on for eternity. Then a point comes where you realise that's not going to be the case. — Brian O'Driscoll

For Captain Aubrey, as for the rest of brute creation, there were only two kinds of birds, the edible and the inedible. — Patrick O'Brian

Oh, there you are. I was afraid you had gone off to your stoats again. The carrier has brought you an ape.' 'What sort of an ape?' asked Stephen. 'A damned ill-conditioned sort of an ape. — Patrick O'Brian

McIntyre's tale may have predecessors, but it is unique. I strain for literary comparisons and think: Kipling, the classical Chinese poets, early Patrick O'Brian, Hopkins. I search for a definition of its animating presence: the predator, the Buddhist sage, the hunter. All fall short. I stand before The Snow Leopard's Tale in awe and with a little envy. It is a gem, an uncanny evocation of the cold ancient dusty highlands of Central Asia, and could only have come from Tom McIntyre. It is his best. — Stephen J. Bodio

(he was a great believer in the healing powers of cheerfulness, if not of open mirth). Yet he had some faults, and one was a habit of dosing himself, generally from a spirit of enquiry, as in his period of inhaling large quantities of the nitrous oxide and of the vapour of hemp, to say nothing of tobacco, bhang in all its charming varieties in India, betel in Java and the neighbouring islands, qat in the Red Sea, and hallucinating cacti in South America, but sometimes for relief from distress, as when he became addicted to opium in one form or another; and now he was busily poisoning himself with coca-leaves, whose virtue he had learnt in Peru. — Patrick O'Brian

He that would make a pun would pick a pocket. — Patrick O'Brian

Authority is a solvent of humanity: look at any husband, any father of a family,and note the absorption of the person by the persona, the individual by the role. Then multiply the family, and the authority, by some hundreds and see the effect upon a sea-captain, to say nothing of an absolute monarch.Surely man in general is born to be oppressed or solitary, if he is to be fully human; unless it so happens that he is immune to the poison. — Patrick O'Brian

The Land of Dreams, that mystical realm,
where the oddest of visions appear,
come wander through scenes of joyful peace,
or stampeded through nightmares of fear.
Dare we open those secret doors,
down dusty paths of mind,
in long-forgotten corners,
what memories we'll find.
Who rules o'er the Kingdom of Night,
where all is not what it seems?
'Tis I, the Weaver of Tales,
for I am the Dreamer of Dreams! — Brian Jacques

The nymphs in green? Delightful girls.' 'It is clear you have been a great while at sea, to call those sandy-haired coarse-featured pimply short-necked thick-fingered vulgar-minded lubricious blockheads by such a name. Nymphs, forsooth. If they were nymphs, they must have had their being in a tolerably rank and stagnant pool: the wench on my left had an ill breath, and turning for relief I found her sister had a worse; and the upper garment of neither was free from reproach. Worse lay below, I make no doubt. — Patrick O'Brian

... and Brian Dooher is down injured. And while he is, I'll tell ye a little story. I was in Times Square in New York last week, and I was missing the Championship back home. So I approached a newsstand and I said 'I suppose you wouldn't have the Kerryman would you?' To which the Egyptian man behind the counter replied 'do you want the North Kerry edition or the South Kerry edition?'. He had both, so I bought both. And Dooher is back on his feet... — Micheal O Muircheartaigh

I have always played into the belief that you are only ever borrowing the jersey; you never own the jersey because someone has gone before you and there is going to be someone after you, so it's a case of giving the jersey maximum respect. — Brian O'Driscoll

Being ready for a thing doesn't mean you want it. — Brian C. O'Doherty

I have interests outside of rugby and have been cultivating them for when I do decide to hang up the boots. — Brian O'Driscoll

I've always found when I was captain when other people were doing the talking for me, I didn't need to say as much, and when I did say one or two things, people tended to listen all the more. — Brian O'Driscoll

Oh, what is that bird?'
'It is a wheatear. We have seen between two and three hundred since we set out, and I have told you their name twice, nay, three times. — Patrick O'Brian

Virtue should always be colmingled with humor. — Patrick O'Brian

I do not like to sound discontented neither,' said Pullings, 'nor to crab any ship I belong to; but between you and me, Doctor, between you and me, she is more what we call a floating coffin than a ship. — Patrick O'Brian

I don't care that people thought I was one way for my whole career because now that I am not attached to a team, I can have my own opinion, I can have my own voice. I can link myself to my own thought process rather than a generic message most teams try to get across. — Brian O'Driscoll

Research from Denis Dutton, Brian Boyd, V.S. Ramachandran, William Hirstein and E.O. Wilson, among many others, is clear on the subject: we are enticed by forms, shapes, rhythms and movements that are useful to our existence. We find Vermeer's "The Girl with the Pearl Earring," beautiful, for example, because her face is symmetrical, a clue to her strong immune system2. As the neuroscientist Eric Kandel suggests in The Age of Insight, we are fascinated by Gustav Klimt's Judith because "at a base level, the aesthetics of the image's luminous gold surface, the soft rendering of the body, and the overall harmonious combination of colors could activate the pleasure circuits, triggering the release of dopamine. If Judith's smooth skin and exposed breast trigger the release of endorphins, oxytocin, and vasopressin, one might feel sexual excitement. — Anonymous

There is a systematic flocci-nauci-nihili-pilification of all other aspects of existence that angers me. — Patrick O'Brian

Surely man in general is born to be oppressed or solitary, if he is to be fully human; — Patrick O'Brian

In a team situation, I think the players are more inclined to give the answer they believe the psychologist is looking for rather than maybe being totally honest. — Brian O'Driscoll

As it usually happened after an engagement, a heavy sadness was coming down over his spirits. To some degree it was the prodigious contrastbetween two modes of life: in violent hand-to-hand fighting threr was no room for time, reflexion, enmity or even pain unless it was disabling; everything moved with extreme speed, cut and parry with a reflex as fast as a sword-thrust, eyes automatically keeping watch on three or four men within reach, arm lunging at the first hint of a lowered guard, a cry to warn a friend, a roar to put an enemy off his stroke; and all this in an extraordinarily vivid state of mind, a kind of fierce exaltation, an intense living in the most immediate present. — Patrick O'Brian

I used to love looking at a recipe, getting all the bits and pieces in the shops, getting them ready and prepared ... I don't really have the time to do that anymore. — Brian O'Driscoll

Hatred the only moving force, a petulant unhappy striving - childhood the only happiness, and that unknowing; then the continual battle that cannot ever possibly be won; a losing fight against ill-health - poverty for nearly all. Life is a long disease with only one termination and its last years are appalling: weak, racked by the stone, rheumatismal pains, senses going, friends, family, occupation gone, a man must pray for imbecility or a heart of stone. All under sentence of death, often ignominious,frequently agonizing: and then the unspeakable levity with which the faint chance of happiness is thrown away for some jealousy, tiff, sullenness, private vanity, mistaken sense of honour, that deadly, weak and silly notion. — Patrick O'Brian

So the first time I ever came into contact with O'Toole was at one of these very gatherings. I remember it well because I'd just punched Harold Pinter down a flight of stairs. Oh yes, I'm afraid so. No long dramatic pauses this time, Harold; he got one right on the side of the jaw. Wham! — Brian Blessed

When you talk to family and friends, they can't tell you anything from an impartial point of view because they have a vested interest in you. — Brian O'Driscoll

There are some midshipmen who will never have the decency to lie down and die, whatever the circumstances. Because they are born to be hanged, no doubt,' added the lieutenant darkly. — Patrick O'Brian

I love going out every day and training and being part of the team, and having friendships built up over a number of years. It's those aspects of sport that I feel are really important. — Brian O'Driscoll

Computer business are like fruit market on a Saturday night. If you don't sell it at five o'clock, the price is down tomorrow because the fruit's no good the next day. You'd better sell it now. — Brian Bagnall

Two weevils crept from the crumbs. 'You see those weevils, Stephen?' said Jack solemnly.
I do.'
Which would you choose?'
There is not a scrap of difference. Arcades ambo. They are the same species of curculio, and there is nothing to choose between them.'
But suppose you had to choose?'
Then I should choose the right-hand weevil; it has a perceptible advantage in both length and breadth.'
There I have you,' cried Jack. 'You are bit - you are completely dished. Don't you know that in the Navy you must always choose the lesser of two weevils? Oh ha, ha, ha, ha! — Patrick O'Brian

The 2001 tour to Australia would have been a great highlight in my career if the Lions had won the series. That might sound strange because it was a great tour in many ways, but, for me, the more time goes by, the less of a career highlight it becomes, and just more of a frustration. — Brian O'Driscoll

I don't really want to be the centre of attention. — Brian O'Driscoll

I need to worry about the things that I am in control of. — Brian O'Driscoll

You are a reasonably civil, complaisant creature on dry land,' said Stephen, 'but the moment you are afloat you become pragmatical and absolute, a bashaw - do this, do that, gluppit the prawling strangles, there - no longer a social being at all. It is no doubt the effect of the long-continued habit of command; but it cannot be considered amiable. — Patrick O'Brian

They were poor thin little undernourished creatures with only a few blue teeth among them, though young: they had been taken up for combining with others to ask for higher wages and sentenced to transportation; but as they were somewhat less criminal than those who had actually made the demand they were allowed to join the Navy instead. — Patrick O'Brian

I didn't know Ian Smith myself! — Brian O'Driscoll

Jack, you have debauched my sloth. — Patrick O'Brian

(Officially the earliest age was eleven for officers' sons and thirteen for the rest, but no one took much notice of the regulation - seven-year-olds were not unknown.) Before — 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

No man born of woman has ever understood spoken Portuguese. — Patrick O'Brian

Rested, shaved, coffee'd, steaked, you will be a different man. — Patrick O'Brian

Oh, as far as unsexing is concerned, who are we to throw stones? With us any girl that cannot find a husband is unsexed. If she is very high or very low she may go her own way, with the risks entailed therein, but otherwise she must either have no sex or he disgraced. She burns, and she is ridiculed for burning. To say nothing of male tyranny - a wife or a daughter being a mere chattel in most codes of law or custom - and brute force - to say nothing to that, hundreds of thousands of girls are in effect unsexed every generation: and barren women are as much despised as eunuchs. I do assure you, Martin, that if I were a woman I should march out with a flaming torch and a sword; I should emasculate right and left. As for the women of the pahi, I am astonished at their moderation. — Patrick O'Brian

If I no longer love Diana,' he wrote, 'what shall I do?' What could he do, with his mainspring, his prime mover gone? He had known that he would love her for ever - to the last syllable of recorded time. He had not sworn it, any more than he had sworn that the sun would rise every morning: it was too certain, too evident: no one swears that he will continue to breathe nor that twice two is four. Indeed, in such a case an oath would imply the possibility of doubt. Yet now it seemed that perpetuity meant eight years, nine months and some odd days, while the last syllable of recorded time was Wednesday, the seventeenth of May. — Patrick O'Brian

I was exposed to the gym at about 28. I never had a huge love or appetite for it - it was just a means to an end. — Brian O'Driscoll

The power of food is only second to sex. — Brian O'Reilly

With one hundred miles left to go in the Klondike 200 I began imagining how amazed people would be at the finished line. Entering the Klondike, my sights had been set on merely finishing. — Brian Patrick O'Donoghue

The author says that when an angry impulse is not immediately expressed, it turns to melancholy. — Patrick O'Brian

Jack, you've debauched my sloth. — Patrick O'Brian

NBC has suspended Brian Williams for six months without pay. Williams said he's not worried because soon his veterans benefits will kick in. — Conan O'Brien

Certainly, nothing would stop me coming home for Christmas, if I can. But I've worked a lot in theatre, and in theatre in New York, we work Christmas Day a lot of the time as well. — Brian F. O'Byrne

I think my form dipped after the Six Nations in 2007, from the World Cup onwards. — Brian O'Driscoll

Oh, the odious wench.How I wish I were rid of her. I have always loathed women, from clew to earring; hook, line and sinker; root and branch.I always said this would happen, you remember; I was against it from the start. Damn it for a flibbertigibbet, the hussy. — Patrick O'Brian

One thing I learnt early on my career is that personal gratification takes second place. — Brian O'Driscoll

He cannot hold his wine; he has no head for it. Why, on no more than three glasses, for I absolutely poured him out no more, he was on the point of singing Yankee Doodle. Yankee Doodle, in a King's ship, upon my sacred honour! — Patrick O'Brian

The back of my hand to guilt. — Patrick O'Brian

What is a potto?"
"It is a little furry creature that sleeps all day with its head between its legs and then walks about very, very slowly all night, high in the trees, slowly eating leaves and creeping up on birds as they roost and eating them too. — Patrick O'Brian

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

What's wrong with (Captain) Jack Aubrey?"
"Everything, since he has a command and I have not. — Patrick O'Brian

For very strangely his officers looked upon Jack Aubrey as a moral figure, in spite of all proofs of the contrary ... — Patrick O'Brian

Good only for destruction - has destroyed all that was valuable in the monarchy - is destroying France with daemonic energy - this tawdry, theatrical empire - a deeply vulgar man - nothing French about him - insane ambition - the whole world one squalid tyranny. His infamous treatment of the Pope! — Patrick O'Brian

If you can be a good role model for people, well, great. You try and live your sporting life and the rest of your life as well as you can, and if it's something that people admire, well, fantastic. I don't sit at home and think about it too much, though - there's plenty of other things in my life going on. — Brian O'Driscoll

I've never set out to seduce my reader. I don't see him at all clearly. — Patrick O'Brian

I've never bought a sports car. — Brian O'Driscoll

It's rare enough as an older generation player that you're 100% fit - there's always something niggling. — Brian O'Driscoll

I have never yet known a man admit that he was either rich or asleep. — Patrick O'Brian

I had massive admiration for lots of players. Richard Hill would be up there, along with Martin Johnson. — Brian O'Driscoll

I was quite small as a kid and maybe a little afraid physically. When I grew into myself, the realisation changed. That when you hurt yourself, it's transient; it doesn't stay forever. — Brian O'Driscoll

But, however, I clapped a stopper over his capers.' Dr Maturin was proud of his nautical expressions: sometimes he got them right, but right or wrong he always brought them out with a slight emphasis of satisfaction, much as others might utter a particularly apt Greek or Latin quotation. 'And brought him up with a round stern,' he added. — Patrick O'Brian

Clap on with both hands, sir - never say die - one more heave and we're home, safe and dry. — Patrick O'Brian

From a misanthrope Bacchus makes me sociable ... Yet on the other hand I had already bowed and smiled; I had performed at least the motions of complaisancy; and how often have I not observed that the imitation begets the reality. — Patrick O'Brian

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

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

I still get a great buzz from rugby. — Brian O'Driscoll

Everyone has tests in their life. They come in lots of different forms. I had two or three together, which definitely challenged me as a person and as a sportsman. The big thing is how you react to those situations. You want to come out positively at the other end, and that's what I focused on doing. — Brian O'Driscoll

We understood one another better before ever I opened my mouth — Patrick O'Brian

Whereas I had not meant anything so illiberal as a national reflexion, of course; only that I hated Papists. — Patrick O'Brian

What was independence but a word? What did any form of government matter? Freedom: to do what? — Patrick O'Brian

This short watch that is about to come, or rather these two short watches
why are they called dog watches? Where, heu, heu, is the canine connection?'
Why,' said Stephen, 'it is because they are curtailed of course. — Patrick O'Brian

I very much dislike being interviewed by the kind of journalist who tries to dig into your private life. — Patrick O'Brian

Everyone is in the business of customer satisfaction.Wh o are your customers and how are they doing? — Brian Tracy

Come athwart my hawse and I shall ride you down, you half-baked son of an Egyptian fart,' to a wool-gathering jolly-boat; and art echoed from either shore. — Patrick O'Brian

About my books, that's all that I think the public has, in its normal way, to know. My private life is, by definition, private. — Patrick O'Brian

aboard ship, and then hard tack, salt-horse, — Patrick O'Brian

The journey of a lifetime is within, you are your own destination. Rick Jarow — Brian O'Raleigh

Caine wanted to be a doctor," Serena recalled with an innocent smile. "At least,that's what he told all the little girls."
"It was a natural aspiration," Caine defended himself, lifting his hand to his mother's knee while his arm held Diana firmly against him.
"Grant used a different approach," Shelby recalled. "I think he was fourteen when he talked Dee-Dee O'Brian into modeling for him-in the nude."
"That was strictly for the purpose of art," he countered when Gennie lifted a brow at him. "And I was fifteen."
"Life studies are an essential part of any art course," Gennie said as she started to draw again. "I remember one male model in particular-" She broke off as Grant's eyes narrowed. "Ah,that scowl's very natural,Grant,try not to lose it. — Nora Roberts

The lookout that first sights the cat shall have ten guineas and remission of sins, short of mutiny, sodomy, or damaging the paintwork. — Patrick O'Brian