Rafael Sabatini



Rafael Sabatini (29 April 1875 – 13 February 1950) was an Italian/British author of romance and adventure novels. A prolific writer, he gained an extensive following in the 1920s.

Scaramouche (1921)

 * He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.
 * Ch. I: "The Republican"
 * This is the opening line of the novel. Sabatini used it as his epitaph.


 * Bestir, ladies! To your chaise, and see that you contrive to look your best. Soon the eyes of Guichen will be upon you, and the condition of your interior to-morrow will depend upon the impression made by your exterior to-day.
 * Book II. Chapter 2. The Service of Thespis


 * You have changed a certainty into a possibility, and I hate possibilities — God of God! I have lived on possibilities, and infernally near starved on them.
 * Book II : Chapter 11. The Fracas at the Theatre Feydau


 * They opposed brute force to reason and philosophy, and battalions of foreign mercenaries to ideas. As if ideas were to be impaled on bayonets!
 * Book III : Chapter 2. Quos Deus Vult Perdere


 * When we know all of whatever it may be, we can never do anything but forgive, madame. That is the profoundest religious truth that was ever written. It contains, in fact, a whole religion&mdash;the noblest religion any man could have to guide him.
 * Ch. XIV: "The Barrier"

Captain Blood (1922)

 * Mr Pollexfen was at one and the same time right and wrong—a condition much more common than is generally supposed.
 * Ch. IV: "Human Merchandise"


 * "Sir!" she checked him. "I think you are talking treason." "I hope I am not obscure," said he.
 * Ch. V: "Arabella Bishop"


 * "It was heroic!" "Heroic, is it? Bedad, it's epic! Ye begin to perceive the breadth and depth of my genius."
 * Ch. IX: "The Rebels-Convict"