The Old Man Quotes

1. "I was sure the old man knew nothing about the beatitudes, ecstasies, dazzling reverberations of sexual encounters. Cut out the poetry was his message. Clinical sex, deprived of all the warmth of love—the orchestration of all the senses, touch, hearing, sight, palate; all the euphoric accompaniments, back-ground music, moods, atmosphere, variations—forced him to resort to literary aphrodisiacs."
Author: Anaïs Nin

2. "We can't know everything, how and wherefore," said the old man. "It is ordained for the bird to have not four wings but two because it is able to fly with two; and so it is ordained for man not to know everything but only a half or a quarter. As much as he needs to know so as to live, so much he knows." ,From ''In The Ravine''~Chekhov~,"
Author: Anton Chekhov

3. "Sydney's the kind of port that leaves a mark on a sailor," the old man mused. "Really?" Haakon said, wondering what the man meant. "It did on me," he said, opening up his shirt to display his chest. It was covered with tattoos! At the top, SYDNEY was printed in elaborate red and blue letters. Beneath that was an enticing selection of names and dates. "Mary, 1838...Adella, 1840..." The old sailor began laughing. "Beatrice, 1843...Helen, 1846." And then finally, "Mother." There was no date after "Mother." "Mothers you love forever," he said. Everybody laughed then, including Haakon, though the thought brought some sadness to his heart. He did love his mother forever, and he missed her as well."
Author: Bonnie Bryant Hiller

4. "Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!"
Author: Charles Dickens

5. "Let them call the old man Inkweaver!" he shouted, loudly enough to be heard all over the house. "It suits him. He's nothing but a craftsman, while I … I am an enchanter! Ink-Enchanter, that's what they ought to call me. That's what they will call me someday!"
Author: Cornelia Funke

6. "For everything I wished were different about the old man, I found comfort in just as many things that never changed."
Author: Craig Lancaster

7. "I was reading an old text on the exploits of Belgarath the Sorcerer, and I –" Senji stopped, going very pale, turned, and gaped at Garion's grandfather."It's a terrible letdown, isn't it?" Beldin said. "We always told him he ought to try to look more impressive.""You're in no position to talk," the old man said."You're the one with the earthshaking reputation." Beldin shrugged. "I'm just a flunky. I'm along for comic relief." "You're really enjoying this, aren't you, Beldin?""I haven't had so much fun in years. Wait until I tell Pol.""You keep your mouth shut, you hear me?""Yes, O mighty Belgarath," Beldin said mockingly."
Author: David Eddings

8. "Little did the old man know how much God liked to talk to His children, how He longed to listen to them."
Author: Debbie Macomber

9. "And so it came about that the demon king Mara found himself staring at a most unwelcome intruder. He glared at the naked old man sitting in lotus position before his throne. Nothing like it had happened in a long while."Go away," Mara growled. "Just because you got here doesn't mean you can't be destroyed." The old man didn't move. His yogic concentration must have been strong, because his lean brown body, as tough as the sinew showing under its skin, grew sharper in out-line. Mara would have commanded some lesser demons to torment the intruder, but these hermits weren't so easily dismissed, so Mara bided his time."
Author: Deepak Chopra

10. "I'll say this, Arik: the old man's warning proved to be true - things are not always what they seem. She was no young lady -" "If it's the demon you speak of," interjected Rith, as she stepped back into the ruin, Lyssa following after, "she was not even a toothless old hag."
Author: Dennis L. McKiernan

11. "And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense? --now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage."
Author: Edgar Allan Poe

12. "I loathe, detest, hate and abominate the block, the gibbet, the rack, the pillory and the faggots with equal passion," said the old man vehemently. "Not only are they devilishly cruel but they are not even common sense. They do not lesson the evil in the world, they increase it, by making those who handle these cruelties as wicked as those who suffer them. No, I'm wrong, more wicked, for there is always some expiation made in the endurance of suffering and none at all in the infliction of it."
Author: Elizabeth Goudge

13. "Fish," the old man said. "Fish, you are going to have to die anyway. Do you have to kill me too?"
Author: Ernest Hemingway

14. "It is silly not to hope, besides I believe it is a sin." The Old Man and the Sea"
Author: Ernest Hemingway

15. "Most people are heartless about turtles because a turtle's heart will beat for hours after he has been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too."
Author: Ernest Hemingway

16. "They would hit a man in the water, if they were hungry, even if the man had no smell of fish blood nor of fish slime on him."Ay," the old man said. "Galanos. Come on galanos."
Author: Ernest Hemingway

17. "Then there is the other secret. There isn't any symbolysm [sic]. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The shark are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know."
Author: Ernest Hemingway

18. "You made quite an impression on the old man, by the way.""You mean Uncle Yuri?""He said he'd marry you. If you weren't related. And if he were fifty years younger. Et cetera. Et cetera.""That a lot of very important 'ifs', Jacks."
Author: Gabrielle Zevin

19. "Allow me to give my lord one last piece of counsel," the old man had said, "the same counsel I once gave my brother when we parted for the last time. He was three-and-thirty when the Great Council chose him to mount the Iron Throne. A man grown with sons of his own, yet in some ways still a boy. Egg had an innocence to him, a sweetness we all loved. Kill the boy within you, I told him the day I took ship for the Wall. It takes a man to rule. An Aegon, not an Egg. Kill the boy and let the man be born." The old man felt Jon's face. "You are half the age that Egg was, and your own burden is crueler one, I fear. You will have little joy of your command, but I think you have the strength in you to do the things that must be done. Kill the boy, Jon Snow. Winter is almost upon us. Kill the boy and let the man be born."
Author: George R.R. Martin

20. "And when I had learned it, I looked atmy life, and it was also a river, and the boy Siddhartha was onlyseparated from the man Siddhartha and from the old man Siddhartha by ashadow, not by something real. Also, Siddhartha's previous births wereno past, and his death and his return to Brahma was no future. Nothingwas, nothing will be; everything is, everything has existence and ispresent."
Author: Hermann Hesse

21. "Leanoardo wrote that a painter should begin every canvas wit a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light. Most painters do the opposite, starting with a whitewash and adding the shadows last. But Paul, who knows Leonardo so well you'd thing the old man slept on the bottom bun, understands the value of starting with the shadows. The only things people can ever know about you are the ones you let them see."
Author: Ian Caldwell

22. "The Young Man came to the Old Man seeking counsel.I broke something, Old Man.How badly is it broken?It's in a million little pieces.I'm afraid I can't help you.Why?There's nothing you can do.Why?It can't be fixed.Why?It's broken beyond repair. It's in a million little pieces."
Author: James Frey

23. "Wonderful," he said. "Tell me. Which books in the Bible do you favor?""Oh, I favors 'em all," Pa said. "But I mostly like Hezekiel, Ahab, Trotter, and Pontiff the Emperor."The Old Man frowned. "I don't recollect I have read those," he said."
Author: James McBride

24. "...Who is that witch, asked the old man with the black eyepatch, these are things we say when we do not know how to take a good look at ourselves, had he lived as she had lived, we should like to see how long his civilised ways would last."
Author: José Saramago

25. "(Slap) "Owhhh … " Raymond yelled as the Old Man's cane hit his face."
Author: Judy Byington

26. "She was given a man's name."The stable master nearly jumped out of his tunic. He hadn't heard Alec Kincaid's approach. He turned around and came face to shoulders with the giant warrior. " 'Twas her mama's way of giving her a place in this family. Baron Jamison weren't the man who fathered Jamie. He claimed her for his own, though. I'll give him that much kindness. Did you get a good look at her, then?" he added in a rush.Alec nodded."You'll be taking her with you, won't you?" The Kincaid stared at the old man a long minute before answering."Aye, Beak. I'll be taking her with me." The choice had been made."
Author: Julie Garwood

27. "You told me he was dead."Red said through his teeth, "There was no point,for there's no meaner, more petty man in all of God's England.""At least I'm not a wastrel," the old man snapped.Red started toward the old man, but Sophia stepped between them. "Red, don't."He looked as if he might burst into flames, then snapped, "I came to get you, Sophie.Have Mary bring your things, and let's go."
Author: Karen Hawkins

28. "A wine cellar requires order, forethought and good taste,' the old man used to say. ‘These are the virtues that made Britain great."
Author: Ken Follett

29. "Rumfoord had known that Constant would try to debase the picture by using it in commerce. Constant's father had done a similar thing when he found he could not buy Leonardo's "Mona Lisa" at any price. The old man had punished Mona Lisa by having her used in an advertising campaign for suppositories. It was the free-enterprise way of handling beauty that threatened to get the upper hand."
Author: Kurt Vonnegut

30. "--Your headache--I am trying to imagine itYour head is in your handsThe nurse is pouring pills onto a plateNovember againToo lateYour headacheIt is a birdWounded, in leavesIts sweet bird's nest is full of pain in a distant placeNovemberThere are daisiesIn the ruined garden, still blooming strangelyAnd in a manic yellow hat, the old ladyAnd the old man, dead in his bedAnd their daughter, the saint:Her dark, religious hair gets tangled in the branchesShe is screaming, grabbingWhile the nurses play Mozart in another roomWhile the bats fly over the roofSnatch the black notes from the blacknessLaughingYou cryI am going to dieI can see them through this windowTheir little black capesThe touching ugliness of their little faces"
Author: Laura Kasischke

31. "It is quite cruel that a poet cannot wander through his regions of enchantment without having a critic, forever, like the old man of the sea, upon his back."
Author: Marianne Moore

32. "If the old man looked at straight lines to keep his act together, I was going to stare at curved lines and go down in flames."
Author: Natsuo Kirino

33. "The nobleman fell to his knees. 'Sir, come down to my son ere he die.' His old face. His love for his son. None of us spoke, the old man kneeling so. I watched your eyes. The pity that pooled, this love of the father. 'Go thy way; thy son lives,' you said. And he raised his face to you, and we could see that he believed."
Author: Niall Williams

34. "Fix that hair! Close that mind! Repeat after me! Page me the second the old man croaks it! Now, are you boys ready? A Seabrook boy is always ready. Ready to work. Ready to play. Ready to listen to his teachers, especially the greatest educator of them all, Jesus. as Jesus said to me once, Greg, what's your secret? And I said, Jesus--study your notes! Get to class! Shave that beard! You show up to your first day on the job dressed like a hippie, of course they're going to crucify you, I don't care whose son you are . . ."
Author: Paul Murray

35. "I thought we had lost you. I thought we'd done something worse than let you die.' His old arms were tight and strong about me. I was kind to the old man. I did not tell him they had."
Author: Robin Hobb

36. "Then, breathing slow, and almost deliberately, stops. But for a moment the old man doesn't realize he is dead. He can feel Martin's heart and mistakes it for his own."
Author: Simon Van Booy

37. "They waited, none of them entirely convinced that the old man wouldn't appear before them again like the ghost of Hamlet's father or Jacob Marley or some other..."
Author: Stephen King

38. "Now its raining its pouringthe old man is snoringnow I lay me down to sleepI hear the sirens in the streetall my dreams are made of chromeI have no way to get back homeI'd rather die before I wakelike Marilyn Monroeand throw my dreams out inthe street and therain make ‘em grow"
Author: Tom Waits

39. "The child entered the hut.The old man followed him with his eyes, and added, as though speaking to himself: - "I shall die while he sleeps. The two slumbers may be good neighbors."
Author: Victor Hugo

40. "I tell you this because books for young readers are so often written about that very moment: the moment of the fork. The moment the old man cannot return to."
Author: Virginia Euwer Wolff

41. "Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? - Lady Macbeth"
Author: William Shakespeare

The Old Man Quotes Pictures