Welcome back to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
(originally published 1883)
I’m feeling very piratey this week. Watch out! I make burst out in a sea shanty before I’m done…
I brooded by the hour together over the map, all the details of which I well remembered. Sitting by the fire in the housekeeper’s room, I approached that island in my fancy, from every possible direction; I explored every acre of its surface; I climbed a thousand times to that tall hill they call the Spyglass, and from the top enjoyed the most wonderful and changing prospects. Sometimes the isle was thick with savages, with whom we fought; sometimes full of dangerous animals that hunted us; but in all my fancies nothing occurred to me so strange and tragic as our actual adventures.
And there’s this little gem, which I’ll have to remember next time I need an indignant comeback:
“Sir,” said Captain Smollett, “with no intention to take offence, I deny your right to put words into my mouth.”
What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!
If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:
- Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
- Leave your link in the comments — or, if you have a quote to share but not a blog post, you can leave your quote in the comments too!
- Visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!


A golden oldie, good choice. Here is my Thursday Quotable. . .
http://amaralebel.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/thursday-quotables.html?m=1
Thanks! I’m about halfway through the book right now, and it’s really fun.
Oh noes!!!! I LOVE Treasure Island!! No, I have to be honest. I LOVE Stevenson!
These are two fantastic excerpts. The second one is priceless 🙂
Well, this is fun, since I’m also quoting one of my favourite authors on my blog http://theoldshelter.com/thursday-quotables-the-lone-ranger-and-tonto-fistfight-in-heaven/
You know, this is my first Stevenson! I’m so glad I finally decided to take the time for Treasure Island — it was definitely a gap in my reading history. It’s kind of hilarious to read all the pirate-speak that people use as jokes now (or on Spongebob), like “shiver me timbers”. Once I finish the book, I plan to track down some of the movie versions. Fun!