Gideon Defoe Quotes

#1. It's like my old Aunt Joan always used to say: if you're going to end up fighting monsters, Pirate Captain, try to stick to ventriloquist's dummies who have gone alive.

Gideon Defoe

#2. Here's your first problem," he said, pointing at a sentence. "'Religion is the opium of the people.' Well, I don't know about people, but I think you'll find that the opium of pirates is actual opium.

Gideon Defoe

#3. They both fell silent. For a while the only sound they could hear was the noise of books resting on shelves, which wasn't really enough of a sound to distract them from the awkwardness of the moment.

Gideon Defoe

#4. The pirates left the boat in the Thames, next to the Palace of Westminster. They deliberately parked across two disabled spaces, because that kind of behaviour was pretty much the whole point of being a pirate.

Gideon Defoe

#5. That explains a lot,' he said. 'I suppose it's also why we've never glimpsed that giant compass in the corner of the Atlantic. I have to say, I'm a little disappointed.

Gideon Defoe

#6. With a sound like a bat hitting a watermelon, pirate fist connected with pirate jaw and a gold tooth bounced across the deck.

Gideon Defoe

#7. If the pirate with a scarf had been more poetically minded he'd have thought that her eyes were like a thousand emeralds, glittering in a far-off pirate treasure chest. But he wasn't, so he just thought that she had really really green eyes, a bit like seaweed.

Gideon Defoe

#8. Just then there came the wheezy sound of an accordion. It was an odd little tune that, had he been alive exactly one hundred and fifty years later, the scarf-wearing pirate would have recognized as the first few bars from 'Theme to Murder, She Wrote'.

Gideon Defoe

#9. The Captain's boat inspections were always pretty slapdash, because they mainly just involved him looking at the ropes and planks and barnacles and then nodding to show that he approved of whatever they happened to be doing.

Gideon Defoe

#10. This is what I like about life at sea. It's one long voyage of discovery. Solid water! What will they think of next? Hopefully a pony who solves crimes.

Gideon Defoe

#11. Babbage's Three Laws of Difference Engines
First Law: A difference engine must have at least six cogs.
Second Law: A difference engine must be able to operate a loom.
Third law: A difference engine must be able to kill a man, should the mood so take it.

Gideon Defoe

#12. You don't know what it is to live and laugh and love and run a man through! You've never tasted salty air on your tongue or waved heartily at a mermaid!

Gideon Defoe

#13. I really didn't write it with any intention of being published. If I'd known that was going to happen, I would have written something more sensible, because now I have to dress up as a pirate for book signings ... I would have done a novel about a man who hangs around with a gaggle of models.

Gideon Defoe

#14. I would like to tell you that I wrote my book to push back artistic boundaries. But I didn't. I wrote it to impress a girl.

Gideon Defoe

#15. It was about as close as you could get to the platonic ideal of a ham, if Plato had spent more time discussing hams and less time mucking about with triangles.

Gideon Defoe

#16. You can't reduce passion and flair and eating ham to numbers, sir!

Gideon Defoe