Santiago Quotes

“But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

“Let him think that I am more man than I am and I will be so.”

“I may not be as stong as I think, but I know many tricks and I have resolution.”

“Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.”

“Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”

“Why do old men wake so early? Is it to have one longer day?”

“If the others heard me talking out loud they would think that I am crazy. But since I am not crazy, I do not care.”

“No one should be alone in their old age, he thought.”

The thousand times he had proved it meant nothing. Now he was proving it again.

You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food, he thought. You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?

Everything about him was old except his eyes, and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.

He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and of the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy.

He is my brother. But I must kill him and keep strong to do it.

“Fish,” he said softly, aloud. “I’ll stay with you until I am dead.”

It is good that we do not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the stars. It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers.

Just then the stern line came taut under his foot, where he had kept the loop of the line, and he dropped his oars and felt the weight of the small tuna’s shivering pull as he held the line firm and commenced to haul it in. The shivering increased as he pulled in and he could see the blue back of the fish in the water and the gold of his sides before he swung him over the side and into the boat. He lay in the stern in the sun, compact and bullet shaped, his big, unintelligent eyes staring as he thumped his life out against the planking of the boat with the quick shivering strokes of his neat, fast-moving tail. The old man hit him on the head for kindness and kicked him, his body still shuddering, under the shade of the stern.

All my life the early sun has hurt my eyes. Yet they are still good.