Arthur Ransome Quotes

“A pigeon a day keeps the natives away.”

“Second thoughts are always worse...”

“Wild goose means he was on a wild goose chase. And when he says, ‘Lays no eggs,’ he means he hasn’t found gold.”

″‘Well, I said nowt about gold to him, that’s one thing.’ said Slater Bob. ‘And if he’s that sort he’ll get nowt out o’ me, not if he asks his questions till crack o’ doom.”

“Fasten one end of it, and unroll the others, so as not to get lost. You could feel your way out with it even if a bat had knocked your candle out and you hadn’t any more matches.”

“It was impossible just to swim and float in the morning sunshine as if nobody had anything else of which to think.”

″‘Her real name isn’t Nancy,’ said Peggy. ‘Her name is Ruth, but Uncle Jim said that Amazons were ruthless, and as our ship is the Amazon, and we are Amazon pirates from the Amazon River, we had to change her name.”

“Let’s broach a puncheon of Jamaica rum. We’ve got a beauty in the Amazon. Let’s go to the harbour and get it. It’s really good stuff. Sometimes our cook is quite friendly, for a native. She calls it lemonade.”

“It was like exploring a place that you have seen in a dream, where everything is just where you expect it and yet everything is a surprise.”

“We are all on the same side, and I don’t see the good of fighting.”

“It is much more difficult to be fierce sitting down than standing up.”

“In a moment he was Captain John, responsible for his ship and his crew, and Mrs. Dixon, the farmer’s wife, was a native, not wholly to be trusted in spite of her toffee and cake.”

“The island had come to seem one of those places seen from the train that belong to a life in which we shall never take part.”

“Swallows for ever!”

″‘My idea,’ said Nancy Blackett, ‘is an alliance against all enemies, especially Uncle Jim- Captain Flint, I mean. But we want the sort of alliance that will let us fight each other if we want to.’ ‘That’s not an alliance,’ said Titty, ‘that’s a treaty, a treaty of offense and defense.‘”

“They were all rather big pearls, but no one really minds a pearl being big, and soon the pearl-divers had a pile of wet and shining jewels by the water-side. The worst of it was that as soon as the stones were dry- and they dried quickly in the sun- they stopped shining, and could not be counted as pearls anymore.”

“It’s no use trying to tell mother about the pirates, not until it’s all over, anyhow. But we must put it in the log and tell her afterwards.”

″...it’s much more fun being sea-dogs and timber shiverers. I propose an alliance.”

“Yesterday seemed unreal and wasted. Those pirates, the gun in Houseboat Bay, the chase up the lake to Rio were a sort of dream. He woke in ordinary life.”