From The Far Side of the World.
Bonden and the mute Padeen enter the American whaler camp to inform Jack that Stephen survived.
They heard the (American) sentry’s “Halt, who goes there?” followed by a strangled gasp, then the sound of blows and Bonden’s strong, “Now then mate, who are you shoving of? Don’t you know he’s dumb?”
"Why didn’t he say so, then? said the sentry in a faint voice. “Let me up.”
“Jack-you have debauched my sloth!” (followed by a dressing-down in French)
From Post Captain, one of the Lively’s crew, speaking of Dr. Maturin:
“Such an example of courage as coming aboard like Badger-Bag, with a narwhal-horn in one hand and a green umbrella in the other, has never come under my observation. Bless him.”
asdkjfdif shakes fist
Okay, if I get to reference the movie:
“Jack, I fear you have burdened me with a debt I can never repay.”
“Tosh, name a shrub after me. Something prickly and hard to eradicate.”
If I don’t, from Master and Commander (I just started reading the series):
“[Stephen:] ‘This I had from Mateu’s own cousin as we danced–’
‘You danced?’ cried Jack, far more astonished than if Stephen had said ‘as we ate our cold roast baby’.”
and
“‘Allow twenty, if you please,’ said Stephen. ‘You portly men of a sanguine complexion often die suddenly, from unconsidered exertion in the heat. Apoplexy–congestion.’
‘I wish, I wish you would not say things like that, Doctor,’ said Jack, in a low tone: they all looked at Stephen with some reproach and Jack added, ‘Besides, I am not portly.’
‘The captain has an uncommon genteel figgar,’ said Mr. Marshall.”
I’m really trying to get into this guys books, i loved the movie but the books are just so boring to me 
everyone is ASTONISHED by everything its so ASTONISHING
did anyone else find this when they started?
Master and Commander was mostly action, the others rely more and more on character development and offer a view of historical English life. You may prefer to watch movies and begin a “Patrick O’Brian is Boring” thread. 
“Let’s hire a hooker… get some coke… go crazy.”
Oh sorry, wrong Pat O’Brien.
If you are bored by the sailing/opera/and fighting over Diana of the first couple of volumes, pick up with Desolation Island. The spy stuff moves much quicker and you may find yourself falling for the two main characters as they each show their strengths and weaknesses.
I’d never heard of O’Brian until just after he died. I walked into Politics and Prose asked the clerk what next, since I had just finished off the Hornblower novels. He raised his arm and turned dramatically to the shrine in the front of the store. I bought the first one and finished it in about 3 days. Came back for the rest and am still reading them over and over.
I can’t recall the exact quote, but I think it was as they were escaping America and Stephen was helping Diana into a boat, as she leaps into his arms he cries - “Oof! No one could call you a light woman, my dear.”
I tried again and again to get into O’Briens sea stories and thought them to be too long winded and and the language too flowery ,rubbish in fact…
And then one day out of desperation Itried the only unread book in the house one more time and was completely and utterly hooked.
Since then I have read the entire series many times over.
I was gutted when he died, he was truly one of the greatest authors since Ad.1000
A true genius(I think M&C was the least best in the series)
It is Jack, as they escape Boston in The Fortune of War, although in Post Captain she only weighs seven stone.
No one could call you a light woman, Diana,’ he said, setting her down among the bait-pots and the pervading reek of decaying squid, and then blushed in the darkness
In one of the early books, Stephen is talking to one of the other officers, who suggests that they go on deck dressed oddly. Stephen informs him that more than anything else, he has a horror of appearing eccentric.
The wording isn’t quite right, but it still makes me giggle.
Question: Why is it called the Dog Watch?
Steven: Because it is cur-tailed!
Jack asks Ensign Fleming about how the American War began.
Flemming respondes: It was about tea…they called out “No reproduction without copulation!” and tossed it into Boston Harbor.
Later, Jack asks Steven: What was the Americans’ cry in 1775?
Steven: “No representation, no taxation.”
Jack: Nothing about copulation?
Steven: Nothing at all. At that period the mass of Americans were in favour of copulation.
The Thirteen Gun Salute
Dangit, I’m about halfway through Hundred Days and I’m not going back to try to find any of these.
The exchange where Jack is afraid someone is hitting on Sophie and Stephen replies “If anyone was so lacking in sense as to make an improper suggestion to her, she wouldn’t understand for a week and when she finally puzzled it out, would go after the unfortunate fool with your double-barreled fowling piece”
And the Fugger mix up was classic.
From Master & Commander
Mr. Marshall is gay.
Stephen complaining that Jack’s opinion of a doctor always references the doctor’s amputation skill: “Always this whipping off of a leg. It is my belief that for you people the whole noble art of medicine is summed up in the whipping off of a leg.”
After hearing one of Jack’s bad jokes (about how Plaice will never be down to his last shilling because there are three of them screwed to his head):
“You are not unlike Shakespeare,” observed Stephen as they walked back to the cabin.
“So I am often told by those who read my letters and dispatches,” said Jack, “but what makes you say so at this particular moment?”
“Because his clowns make quips of that bludgeoning, knock-me-down nature. You have only to add marry, come up, or go to, with a pox on it, and it is pure Gammon, or Bacon, or what you will.”
“That is only your jealousy,” said Jack.
I love the scene in Nutmeg, when the new purser, Mr. Standish, is trying to board the ship from a cutter:
Stephen and Martin stood immediately above him, by a gangway-stanchion, leaning down and giving advice: Standish was the only man belonging to the ship who knew less about the sea than they (he had never left the land before) and they did not dislike sharing their knowledge.
I don’t have access to my collection right now, so I don’t have the exact quotes, but there is a scene that comes to mind everytime I think of O’Brian.
The ships clock has been dropped while being cleaned and Jack is very perturbed by it. The assistant surgeon asks Stephen why the Captain is so upset about the loss of the timepiece, seeing that he has a pocket watch with which to know the time. Stephen replies that the ship’s clock is important to navigation, it has a role in determing the ship’s latitude. Jack, upon hearing this interjects, “Most sailors use a sextant for finding latitude, the clock is for determing longitude, you know Stephen, the up and down lines on the chart.”
I don’t know why I found that particular passage so hilarious, but when I first read it I laughed until I could no longer catch my breath. My wife was about to begin CPR.
My second most favorite quote was from Jack during one of his many escapes. He pretending to be a common sailor addressing another sailor.
“Fuck you, mate”.
There is not much actual profanity in the entire series so this one stands out.
Excellent!
Both from The Fortune of War.
Again, during the escape from Boston:
‘Joe,’ came a voice from the darkness under the Arcturus’s stern. ‘Joe. Are youse a-going out?’
‘I ain’t Joe,’ said Jack.
‘Who are you, then?’ asked the boat, now visible.
‘Jack.’
‘Where’s Joe?’
‘Gone to Salem.’
‘Are youse a-going out, Jack?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You got any bait, Jack?’
‘No.’
‘Well, fuck you, Jack.’
‘And fuck you too, mate,’ said Jack mildly
Asking for promotion for some of his officers:
'‘But surely, sir, even a man with no respect for the immemorial customs of the service…was I not to stand by my officers and midshipmen…The immemorial custom of the service…’
‘Oh, fuck the immemorial custom of the service,’ cried the Admiral: and then, appalled at his own words, he fell silent for a while.
‘Oh well, a fig for it, anyhow,’ he said at last.