Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale... from hell's heart I stab at thee.

Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.

The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true-- not true, or undeveloped. With books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon’s, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe.

It is well known, that the best productions of the best human intellects, are generally regarded by those intellects as mere immature freshman exercises, wholly worthless in themselves, except as initiatives for entering the great University of God after death.

As with ships, so with men; he who turns his back to his foe gives him an advantage.

It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great secret in him.

Where does any novelist pick up any character? For the most part, in town, to be sure.