"For a long time now, the circus-running sun has raced within his fiery ring and needs no sustenance but what's in himself. So Ahab."

"But how now? in this zoned quest, does Ahab touch no land? does his crew drink air? Surely he will stop for water. Nay."

'"Ha, Ishmael,' muttered I, backing out, 'Wretched entertainment at the sign of "The Trap!'"

"In no loving thing are the lines of beauty more exquisitely defined than in the crescentric borders of these flukes."

"Other poets have warbled the praises of the soft eye of the antelope, and the lovely plumage of the bird that never alights; less...

"For all have doubts; many deny; but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions."

"For do you see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate vapor."

"But then again, what has the whale to say?"

"Perseus, St. George, Hercules, Jonah, and Vishnu! there's a member-roll for you! What club but the whale-man's can head off like that?"

"It is not necessary that we consider Jonah as tombed in the whale's belly but as temporarily lodged in some part of his mouth. And this...