Tales of the Black Freighter Quotes

  • The Sea Captain: Know this my friends: Hades is wet. Hades is lonely. And in that instant, we knew each other.

  • The Sea Captain: One of my crew lay ahead. Birds were eating his thoughts and memories.

  • The Sea Captain: I'd had swallowed too much sea water. I had swallowed too much horror.

  • The Sea Captain: I headed east. East, borne on the bodies of murdered men. Hope can be a horrible thing.

  • The Sea Captain: Whoever we are, wherever we reside, we exist on the whim of murderers.

  • The Sea Captain: There came an understanding so large, it left no room for sanity. So I ran. The knowledge of my damnation chased me, shouting, celebrating its awful victory.

  • [last lines]

    The Sea Captain: I was a horror; amongst horrors must I dwell.

  • The Sea Captain: I give my life for nobility! Even if I fail in my attempt, I take solace in the fact that I will see my family again in Heaven!

    Ridley: Heaven? Oh there is no Heaven captain. Believe me sir. I would know by now.

  • The Sea Captain: My raft had grown increasingly grotesque, reflecting my own transformation. Adrift, my darkest imaginings welled up unchecked, spilling from brain to heart like ink. Impossible to remove.

  • The Sea Captain: My wife, my children most certainly dead. My crew, dead. The beast I ride on, dead.

  • The Sea Captain: God has damned me. God has damned us all. Truly, life is hell, and death's rough hand her only deliverance.

  • The Sea Captain: How had I reached this appalling position with love, only love, as my guide? The money lender floated at my feet. Noble intentions had led me to atrocity. The righteous anger fueling my ingenious awful scheme was but delusion. Where was my error?