Old Sea Captain Quotes & Sayings

For Chips, like some old sea captain, still measured time by the signals of the past ... — James Hilton

So wait a minute. I go looking for the story of the guy who wrote this awesome wind scale tha tblew my mind. I start reading about his life, and before he's sixteen years old I've already run across a family's flight from the poorhouse, an early balloon flight, an eccentric father, a young man at sea, Malay pirates, shipwreck, castaways, buried treasure, and Captain Bligh, fresh off the mutiny on the Bounty. Not a single word about the wind, but honestly, at this point, who cares? — Scott Huler

Whether the type of old sea captain that I have portrayed in my stories is gone forever, is a question. Certainly each summer I find that the ranks have perceptibly thinned. The longshore captain is still there, many of the men who are not any older than myself, but their viewpoint is not that of a man who sailed his square rigged ship out one morning with China as his destination. — Joseph C. Lincoln

The town had a faint air of benign neglect that only added to its charm: a seaside village with white clapboard buildings, seagulls wheeling overhead, uneven brick sidewalks and local shops. They passed a gas station, several old storefronts with plate-glass windows, a diner, a funeral parlor, a movie theater turned into a bookstore, and an eighteenth-century sea captain's mansion, complete with widow's walk. A sign out front identified it as the Exmouth Historical Society and Museum. — Douglas Preston

Esteban fell face downward upon the floor. "I am alone, alone, alone," he cried. The Captain stood above him, his great plain face ridged and gray with pain; it was his own old hours he was reliving. He was the awkwardest speaker in the world apart from the lore of the sea, but there are times when it requires a high courage to speak the banal. He could not be sure the figure on the floor was listening, but he said, "We do what we can. We push on, Esteban, as best we can. It isn't for long, you know. Time keeps going by. You'll be surprised at the way time passes. — Thornton Wilder

This was to be my last trip. Sailing great distances was dangerous, and not very profitable in today's world. I walked down the worn wooden step to the captain's cabin, the creaking of the ship keeping time with my steps. Opening the door I found him bent over an old map.
"Where are we captain?" I asked, hoping it was close to home.
"See this spot, where it says "Here there be monsters"?" he said pointing to an image of a horrid beast.
"Certainly, but you and I both know such creatures don't exist!!"
The captain laughed, and looking up at me with an evil glint in his eye said, "Who's talking about sea monsters?". As he spoke the skin from one corner of his mouth fell loose, exposing a yellow reptilian skin beneath.
"What?" I yelled, and as I turned to run for the cabin door I heard screams and loud moans coming from the deck, and the crew quarters below.
I felt fetid breath on the back of my neck, "Aye matey, here there be monsters — Neil Leckman

If you're gay, you're gay. It's my Dennis Miller theory of homosexuality shot through the movie "Boy and the Dolphin." If you're a 12-year-old boy and you're watching the movie "Boy and a Dolphin" and a 27-year-old Sofia Loren crawls up out of the Aegean Sea after sponge diving, she's standing there in the deck of the boat in a see-through gauze top, rivulets of water dripping off her torso onto the deck of the boat. If you're a 12-year-old boy and you're watching that and you still want to make it with the captain of the boat, you're gay. You can't fight that. So it is what it is. — Bill O'Reilly

She considered him further and decided he could definitely pass for a pirate. No, she thought, correcting herself. More like a sea captain, a younger version of the captain from that old movie where the pretty woman rents an old sea captain's house only to find the place haunted by the sea captain himself.
She let out a heavy breath. Man, she loved that movie. — Madison Thorne Grey

It's time, Old Captain, lift anchor, sink!
The land rots; we shall sail into the night;
if now the sky and sea are black as ink
our hearts, as you must know, are filled with light.
Only when we drink poison are we well
we want, this fire so burns our brain tissue,
to drown in the abyss - heaven or hell,
who cares? Through the unknown, we'll find the new. ("Le Voyage") — Charles Baudelaire

It is observed at sea that men are never so much disposed to grumble and mutiny as when least employed. Hence an old captain, when there was nothing else to do, would issue the order to scour the anchor. — Samuel Smiles

My death..I mean..will it be quick,and with dignity? How will i know when the end is coming?"
"When you vomit blood,sir," Tao Chi'en said sadly.
That happened three weeks later,in the middle of Pacific,in the privacy of the captain's cabin. As soon as he could stand , the old seaman cleaned up the traces of his vomit, rinsed out his mouth , changed his bloody shirt, lighted his pipe, and went to the bow of his ship , where he stood and looked for the last time at the stars winking in a sky of black velvet. Several sailors saw him and waited at a distance, caps in hands. When he had smoked the last of his tobacco, Captain John Sommers put his legs over the rail and noiselessly dropped into the sea.
-Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende. — Isabel Allende