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“If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle

“All life is but a skull-bone and
A rack of ribs through which
we keep passing food & fuel-
just so's we can burn so
furious beautiful.”
― Jack Kerouac

“But he's nice," Barby objected.

Tom Bishop smiled without humor. "Most pleasant and interesting man I ever knew was a burglar.”
― John Blaine, The Phantom Shark

“Rick and Scotty, who had heard Australian slang before from Digger Sears, one-time mate of the Tarpon, broke into chuckles.

"I'd better translate," Scotty said, "'Lord stone the crows' is just an expression. Oscar Ashe is hard cash. Yakka is hard work. And dinkum oil is gospel truth.”
― John Blaine, The Phantom Shark

“Rick was proud of his sister. In situations where most girls would be a burden, she could more than hold her own. She could hike all day without complaint, and she was like a water sprite when it came to swimming. At tennis, although Rick had a much stronger drive, she gave him plenty of competition. And at badminton or ping-pong, where strength didn't count, she could run him ragged. She was a swell trail companion and her sense of adventure was as strong as his own.”
― John Blaine, The Phantom Shark

“No sooner did the plan let them off at New Caledonia, than Barby found another friend. He was a Kanaka taxi driver, over six feet tall and muscled like a blacksmith, with sooty skin and hair turned yellow from many applications of lime, a standard native treatment for lice. He chewed betel incessantly, which Barby thought was fascinating, since it turned his tongue and lips the color of a ripe tomato. His name, he said in wonderfully bad English, was Henri. He pronounced it 'On-ree.”
― John Blaine, The Phantom Shark

“As they left the pier and walked into the park, Chahda looked around appreciatively. "Nice place, this. Capital of New Caledonia. Big island, has 8,548 square mile, also has 53,245 peoples. Eleven thousand in Noumea. That is what says the Worrold Alm-in-ack."

Rick and Scotty laughed. It was like old times to hear Chahda quoting from The World Almanac. A Bombay beggar boy, he had educated himself with only the Almanac for his textbook, and he had laboriously memorized everything in it.”
― John Blaine, The Phantom Shark

“We women have intuition," Barby said loftily. "I wouldn't expect you to understand. I can't imagine why there aren't more women detectives.”
― John Blaine, The Phantom Shark

“Plenty of blanks in the world's charts. There will have to be a lot surveying before all of them are filled in.”
― John Blaine, The Phantom Shark

“Everyone knew Ava and her wives. They were the model household for the community, one every husband cited when his wives disagreed. Ava was a tall, rather light-skinned woman who was . . . the senior of five wives. . . . She saved up 40 or 50 shillings (about $55 to 67 in 2020 values) every few years, searched out an industrious girl of congenial character, and presented her to her husband: “Here is your new wife.â€�

Ava’s husband always welcomed her additions to his household and he always set to work to pay the rest of the bridewealth, for he knew perfectly well that Ava always picked hard-working, healthy, handsome, steady women who wouldn’t run away. Many men envied him.”
― Elenore Smith Bowen, Return to Laughter: An Anthropological Novel