40 quotes
I was five years old the first time I got drunk.
John Barleycorn (1913)
Wolf - tis what he is. He's not blackhearted like some men. 'Tis no heart he has at all. Wolf. just Wolf, tis what he is. D'ye wonder he's well named?
The Sea-Wolf (1904)
The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances.
It was patent that this terrible man was no ignorant clod, such as one would inevitably suppose him to be from his exhibitions of brutality. At once he became an enigma.
The Sea-Wolf (1904)
These women, capable of the most sublime emotions, of the tenderest sympathies, were openmouthed and screaming. They wanted to live, they were helpless, likes rats in a trap, and they screamed.
The Sea-Wolf (1904)
I do not live for what the world thinks of me, but for what I think of myself.
Life? Bah! It has no value. Of cheap things it is the cheapest.
The Sea-Wolf (1904)
I love the flesh. I'm a pagan. “Who are they who speak evil of the clay? The very stars are made of clay like mine!”
And through it all, calm and impassive, leaning on his elbow and gazing down, Wolf Larsen seemed lost in a great curiosity. This wild stirring of yeasty life, this terrific revolt and defiance of matter that moved, perplexed and interested him.
The Sea-Wolf (1904)
The fortunate man is the one who cannot take more than a couple of drinks without becoming intoxicated. The unfortunate wight is the one who can take many glasses without betraying a sign; who must take numerous glasses in order to get the kick.
John Barleycorn (1913)
He was not immoral, but merely unmoral.
The Sea-Wolf (1904)
Concerning his own rages, I am convinced that they are not real, that they are sometimes experiments, but that in the main they are the habits of a pose or attitude he has seen fit to take toward his fellowman.
The Sea-Wolf (1904)
"The cap'n is Wolf Larsen, or so men call him. I never heard his other name. But you better speak soft with him. He is mad this morning. The mate-" But he did not finish. The cook had glided in.
The Sea-Wolf (1904)
"Then one can't make a living out of poetry?"
"Certainly not. What fool expects to? Out of rhyming, yes."
Martin Eden (1909)
I am. I was. I am not. I never am.
John Barleycorn (1913)
I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
I did not begin when I was born, nor when I was conceived. I have been growing, developing, through incalculable myriads of millenniums… All my previous selves have their voices, echoes, promptings in me... Oh, incalculable times again shall I be born.
He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survive.
The Call of the Wild (1903)
All day he ran. He did not rest. He seemed made to run on forever. His iron-like body ignored fatigue. And even after fatigue came, his heritage of endurance braced him to endless endeavour, and enabled him to drive his complaining body onward.
White Fang (1905)
"My vision is clear and far. I could almost believe in God. But" - and his voice changed and the light went out of his face - "what is this condition in which I find myself? This joy of living? This exultation of life? This inspiration, I may well call it? It comes when there is nothing wrong with one's digestion, when the stomach is in trim and and his appetite has an edge, and all goes well."
The Sea-Wolf (1904)