This Spoken World

"Dead men don't bite..."

“And there’s an end to Captain Silver!...”

"What hope had I left of reaching land?..."

“But one man of her crew alive,
    What put to sea with seventy-five...”

"If I am right, he’s going now to see Ben Gunn..."

"Out, lads, out, and fight ’em in the open!..."

“We want that treasure, and we’ll have it..."

“First ship that ever I lost...”

“Strike my colours! No, sir, not I...”

"Israel was Flint’s gunner...”

“Jim Hawkins is gone...”

“Well, I don’t understand one word that you’ve been saying, but that’s neither here nor there..."

“It’s a black conscience that can make you feared of me..."

"Now, we’ve only one man to rely on.”

“And who is that?” 

“Silver, sir...”

“Hawkins, I put prodigious faith in you...”

"A brave lad you were, and smart too, and a finer figurehead for a gentleman of fortune I never clapped my eyes on..."

“Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!”

"I don’t like treasure voyages on any account, and I don’t like them, above all, when they are secret, and when the secret has been told to the parrot..."

“You and me should get on well, Hawkins..."

"I engaged him on the spot to be ship’s cook. Long John Silver, he is called, and has lost a leg..."

"The doctor opened the seals with great care, and there fell out the map of an island..."

"Oh, shiver my soul!...”

"It was like any other seaman’s chest on the outside..."

"At one look the rum went out of him and left him staring sober..."

"You know an old shipmate, Bill, surely..."

“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest—
            Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
          Drink and the devil had done for the rest—
            Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.."

“They’re a rotten crowd. You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together...”

“What kind of a row are you trying to cause in my house anyhow?...”

“Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!...”

"No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man can store up in his ghostly heart..."

“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired...”

"It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favour. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey..."

"Neither of them can stand the person they’re married to...”

"Gatsby? What Gatsby?"

Special guest Susie Duecker tells the story of a runaway princess disguised as a kitchen maid, with a cloak made from the fur of a thousand creatures...

"My mother killed her little son...

My father grieved when I was gone...

My sister loved me best of all...

She laid her kerchief over me

And took my bones that they may lie

Underneath the juniper tree...

Kywitt! Kywitt!

What a beautiful bird am I!"

Special guest Maya Danks tells the story of a beautiful maiden tormented by an evil stepmother and stepsisters... and by the legendary witch Baba Yaga...

Special guest Maura Atwood tells the story of a young man whose dearest wish is to find out what it means to shudder...

"If during that time you tell me my name, you shall keep your child..."

An (unconfirmed) sequel to Hansel and Gretel...

Before the Justice League, before the Avengers, there were... these guys?...

“Dear me–why, I’ve lost half an hour this morning!”

The classic story of a disgruntled fairy, a cursed princess, an enchanted sleep, and a magical kiss...

"The floor was all covered with blood..."

The story of a helpful dwarf, three magical gifts, a crafty princess, three old soldiers who only want to retire in peace, a two fruit trees with very strangely specific powers...

"Let it cost what it may..."

There are some key details missing from this version of the story:

1. Hansel fools the witch into thinking that he's not getting any fatter by taking advantage of her poor eyesight, sticking a bone out through the bars of his cage whenever she comes to check his plumpness.

2. Hansel and Gretel both regain their strength during their imprisonment because Hansel shares his food with Gretel when the witch isn't looking.

3. GRETEL. PUSHES. THE. WITCH. INTO. THE. OVEN.

“Be comforted. The evil days are past..."

"You can find something better than death everywhere..."