- Robinson Crusoe: If anyone in England met such an odd creature as I was in my 18th year of solitude, it must either have frightened them or caused a great deal of laughter.
- Robinson Crusoe: How wrong I had been. Friday was as loyal a friend as any man could want. With his many different skills he enriched my life on the island. We had found that two working together could do much more than working separately.
- Robinson Crusoe: Now truly alone, starved for the sound of another voice, any voice. I would rush to the valley of my echo.
- Friday: If God be most strong, why he no kill devil?
- Robinson Crusoe: Well, you see Friday, without the devil, there'd be no temptation and no sin. The devil must be there or us to have a chance to choose sin or resist it.
- Friday: Is God let devil tempt us?
- Robinson Crusoe: Yes.
- Friday: Then, why God mad when we sin?
- Robinson Crusoe: Tinder, steel, flint. Fire. Firel Worth more to me, than all the gold in the world.
- Crusoe's father: [in Robinson's delirium dream] Your mother and I will forgive you. Remember. But God will not forgive you.
- [laughs]
- Crusoe's father: He will not forgive you.
- Robinson Crusoe: [in Robinson's delirium dream] You here, father?
- Crusoe's father: Yes. here. Here, here, here, here, here. Not there, but here. Where else would I be? Are you not here?
- Robinson Crusoe: I learned to master everything in my island except myself. Sometimes in the midst of my work, the anguish of my soul and my loneliness I would break out upon me like a storm.
- Robinson Crusoe: My heart died within me. Alone. Alone. Forever alone. I was a prisoner, locked up by the eternal bars and bolts of the ocean.
- Robinson Crusoe: Escape. No matter the dangers, I must do something to escape this tomb, this prison.
- Robinson Crusoe: The scriptures came meaningless to my eyes. The world seemed but a whirling ball. Its oceans and continents, a green scum, and myself, with no purpose. And no meaning.
- Robinson Crusoe: I was in a murdering humor, I even thought to lure them into my castle and from the ambush, slaughter 20 or 30, of the naked wretches. I knew no peace for months and months.
- Robinson Crusoe: Days became weeks, weeks became months, months became years. I quite gave up looking to see for ships. In time, my linen clothes rotted, my cats all ran wild. My faithful dog weaken by age could no longer keep up with the hunt he so dearly loved.
- Robinson Crusoe: Condemned, to all those years of loneliness, now trembling in the apprehension of seeing another human. How mad men are possessed by fear.
- Robinson Crusoe: Friday! Why are you here Friday, what do you want?
- Friday: Smoke. Good for Master, Good for Friday.
- Robinson Crusoe: How reassuring it was to see him eat the flesh of animals, knowing the only source for that other meat he so relished would be myself.
- Robinson Crusoe: Friday was as loyal a friend as any man could want. With his many different skills he enriched my life on the island. We had found that the two working together could do much more than the two working separately.
- [first lines]
- Robinson Crusoe: Being the third son of a good family and not educated to any trade my head began to be filled early with thoughts of leaving England, to see the world. And thus against the will, nay the commands of my father, I broke loose and went out to sea. How true my father's prophecy of disaster for not long after, being in the latitude of 12 degrees, 18 minutes bound for Africa to buy Negro slaves for my fellow planters in the Brazils a violent tornado came upon us which carried us westward. Far out of the way of human commerce.