Moby Dick

by Herman Melville

Call me Ishmael.

When interviewed, author John Irving said that this was one of his favorite first lines.

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries.

It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.

I go as a simple sailor,

Who ain’t a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about—however they may thump and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way—either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades, and be content.

The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But BEING PAID,—what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!

but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote.

“Landlord! Watch! Coffin! Angels! save me!”

This is pretty much how I respond when I am trying to read quietly and someone sits next to me and begins a loud, obnoxious conference call.

“Queequeg here wouldn’t harm a hair of your head.”

What’s all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to myself—the man’s a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.

Yes, it was the famous Father Mapple,

Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.

In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.

You cannot hide the soul.

I’ll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy.

yet see how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when love once comes to bend them.

We cannibals must help these Christians.”

They are fighting Quakers;

all mortal greatness is but disease.

This world pays dividends.

Ahab’s above the common; Ahab’s been in colleges, as well as ‘mong the cannibals; been used to deeper wonders than the waves; fixed his fiery lance in mightier, stranger foes than whales. His lance! aye, the keenest and the surest that out of all our isle!

This guy should go into advertising.

Ahab has his humanities!”

I couldn't say this without laughing.

I labored to show Queequeg that all these Lents, Ramadans, and prolonged ham-squattings in cold, cheerless rooms were stark nonsense;

I say, tell Quohog there—what’s that you call him?

We must have Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of our boats.

stop palavering,—away!”

Starbuck, a native of Nantucket, and a Quaker by descent.

Does he like Pink Drink or Pumpkin Spice?

Stubb was the second mate.

The third mate was Flask, a native of Tisbury, in Martha’s Vineyard.

Next was Tashtego,

Third among the harpooneers was Daggoo,

ISOLATO

He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness.

his tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it,

Does Captain Ahab have a Harry Potter scar?!?!?! lol

become that way branded,

Well yes we don't talk about Voldemort! lol

The warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped up—flaked up, with rose-water snow.

Clearly this sentence needs more adjectives. lol

in what internal respect does the whale differ from other fish. Above, Linnaeus has given you those items. But in brief, they are these: lungs and warm blood; whereas, all other fish are lungless and cold blooded.

regular system of Cetology

I do not support this chapter.

the Specksnyder. Literally this word means Fat-Cutter; usage, however, in time made it equivalent to Chief Harpooneer.

Dough-Boy, the steward,

Captain Sleet

I have no idea who this is because this chapter is so boring that I was trying to block it out.

white whale.

“Aye, aye! and I’ll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition’s flames before I give him up.

I came here to hunt whales, not my commander’s vengeance.

I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer.

Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves!

Teehee

I, Ishmael, was one of that crew;

the White Whale