Ishmael

"Some unknown conduit from the unknown deeps send up a bloodlike stream to the surface."

"The sea calmly rolls on; we carve but one inscription upon her; our gulls are soon lost in her limitless waste."

"All evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick."

"He spake little; but to every word he uttered he seemed a sentence of Doom."

"I try the lost child's charity of the universe."

"Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."

"It is the biggest sort of bigotry to believe there is but one sort of bigotry."

"The great Leviathan is that one creature in the world which must remain unpainted to the last."

"Some certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little worth."

"Call me Ishmael."

"There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast."

"To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme."

"I know that of me, which I know not of myself."

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."

"There are some certain queer times and places in this odd world when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke."

"Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."

"The whale is far more of a gentle fellow and a philosopher than many are apt to think him."

"A strange sort of insanity then came over me."

"What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it?"

"It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me."

"Hell is an idea first born on an unequal heel of power."

"It was not a dull monotony of blind obedience."

"In this world, some certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little worth."

"The cabin lamp cast its light upon the white canvas of my soul."

"Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian."

"Some certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little worth."

"For there is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men."

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul."

"This book is the Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges."

"Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse."