The Old Man and the Sea Friendship Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Day.Paragraph). We artificially created chapters by defining "days," because there are no chapter breaks in The Old Man and the Sea. Here’s how we divided up the days:
  • Day 1 = the start of the book until the old man falls asleep for the night
  • Day 2 = begins when the old man wakes up and goes until sunrise of the next day
  • Day 3 = begins at sunrise and goes until the old man dreams about the lions
  • Day 4 = begins when the old man wakes and ends when the old man gets back to his shack for the night
  • Day 5 = begins with the boy seeing the old man in the morning and goes until the end of the book

Quote #7

"So do I," the boy said. "Now I must get your sardines and mine and your fresh baits.

He brings our gear himself. He never wants anyone to carry anything."

"We’re different," the old man said. "I let you carry things when you were five years old." (2.12-2.13)

The old man’s friendship with the boy is based on mutual respect.

Quote #8

In the dark the old man could feel the morning coming and as he rowed he heard the trembling sound as flying fish left the water and the hissing that their stiff set wings made as they soared away in the darkness. He was very fond of flying fish as they were his principal friends on the ocean. He was sorry for the birds, especially the small delicate dark terns that were always flying and looking and almost never finding, and he thought, the birds have a harder life than we do except for the robber birds and the heavy strong ones. Why did they make birds so delicate and fine as those sea swallows when the ocean can be so cruel? She is kind and very beautiful. But she can be so cruel and it comes so suddenly and such birds that fly, dipping and hunting, with their small sad voices are made too delicately for the sea. (2.21)

The old man finds friends on the ocean because he is lonely without the boy.

Quote #9

"The bird is a great help," the old man said. Just then the stern line came taut under his foot, where he had kept a loop of the line, and he dropped his oars and felt tile weight of the small tuna’s shivering pull as he held the line firm and commenced to haul it in. (2.50)

The old man has a supernatural kinship with the sea and its inhabitants; his claim that the bird is "a great help" is immediately followed by confirmation.