Author: Herman Melville

Cites

• Bible (5)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: In that day, the Lord with his sore, and great, and strong sword, shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the sragon that is in the sea.
    FROM: Bible, Isaiah 27:1, (-165), Bible, NULL
• Plutarch (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: And what thing soever besides cometh within the chaos of this monster's mouth, be it beast, boat, or stone, down it goes all incontinently that foul great swallow of his, and perisheth in the bottomless gulf of his paunch.
    FROM: Holland's Plutarch's Morals, (100), Essay, Italy
• Pliny (the Elder) (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The Indian Sea breedeth the most and the biggest fishes that are: among which the Whales and Whirlpooles called Balaene, take up as much in length as four acres or arpens of land.
    FROM: Holland's Pliny, (77), Book, Italy
• Lucian (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Scarcely had we proceeded two days on the sea, when about sunrise a great many Whales and other monsters of the sea, appeared. Among the former, one was of a most monstrous size.... This came towards us, open-mouthed, raising the waves on all sides, and beating the sea before him into a foam.
    FROM: Tooke's Lucian. "The True History", (150), Novel, Italy
• NULL (4)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts never fail, While the bold harpooneer is striking the whale!
    FROM: Nantucket Song, (None), Song, US
• Montaigne (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: And whereas all the other things, whether beast or vessel, that enter into the dreadful gulf of this monster's (whale's) mouth, are immediately lost and swallowed up, the sea-gudgeon retires into it in great security, and there sleeps.
    FROM: Apology for Raimond Sebond, (1576), Essay, France
• Rabelais (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Let us fly, let us fly! Old Nick take me if is not Leviathan described by the noble prophet Moses in the life of patient Job.
    FROM: Gargantua and Pantagruel, (1694), Novel, France
• John Stow (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: This whale's liver was two cartloads.
    FROM: Stowe's Annals, (1592), Book, UK
• Bible (translated by Francis Bacon) (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The great Leviathan that maketh the seas to seethe like boiling pan.
    FROM: Lord Bacon's Version of the Psalms, (-165), Bible, NULL
• Francis Bacon (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Touching that monstrous bulk of the whale or ork we have received nothing certain. They grow exceeding fat, insomuch that an incredible quantity of oil will be extracted out of one whale.
    FROM: Ibid. "History of Life and Death", (1623), Book, UK
• William Shakespeare (2)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Very like a whale.
    FROM: Hamlet, (1603), Play, UK
• Edmund Spenser (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Which to secure, no skill of leach's art Mote him availle, but to returne againe To his wound's worker, that with lowly dart, Dinting his breast, had bred his restless paine, Like as the wounded whale to shore flies thro' the maine.
    FROM: The Faerie Queen, (1596), Poem, UK
• (Sir) William Davenant (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Immense as whales, the motion of whose vast bodies can in a peaceful calm trouble the ocean till it boil.
    FROM: Preface to Gondibert, (1650), Poem, UK
• (Sir) Thomas Browne (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: What spermacetti is, men might justly doubt, since the learned Hosmannus in his work of thirty years, saith plainly, Nescio quid sit.
    FROM: Of Sperma Ceti and the Sperma Ceti Whale. Vide his V. E. (Pseudodoxia Epidemica), (1646), Book, UK
• Edmund Waller (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Like Spencer's Talus with his modern flail He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail. ... Their fixed jav'lins in his side he wears, And on his back a grove of pikes appears.
    FROM: Battle of the Summer Islands, (1645), Poem, UK
• Thomas Hobbes (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: By art is created that great Leviathan, called a Commonwealth or State-(in Latin, Civitas) which is but an artificial man.
    FROM: Leviathan, (1651), Book, UK
• John Bunyan (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Silly Mansoul swallowed it without chewing, as if it had been a sprat in the mouth of a whale.
    FROM: Pilgrim's Progress, (1678), Novel, UK
• John Milton (2)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: There Leviathan, Hugest of living creatures, in the deep Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims, And seems a moving land; and at his gills Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea.
    FROM: Paradise Lost, (1667), Poem, UK
• Thomas Fuller (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The mighty whales which swim in a sea of water, and have a sea of oil swimming in them.
    FROM: The Holy State and the Profane State, (1640), Book, UK
• John Dryden (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: So close behind some promontory lie The huge Leviathan to attend their prey, And give no chance, but swallow in the fry, Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way.
    FROM: Annus Mirabilis, (1667), Poem, UK
• Thomas Edge (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: While the whale is floating at the stern of the ship, they cut off his head, and tow it with a boat as near the shore as it will come; but it will be aground in twelve or thirteen feet water.
    FROM: Ten Voyages to Spitzbergen, in Purchas, (None), Book, UK
• Thomas Herbert (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: In their way they saw many whales sporting in the ocean, and in wantonness fuzzing up the water through their pipes and vents, which nature has placed on their shoulders.
    FROM: Sir T. Herbert's Voyages into Asia and Africa. Harris Coll., (1677), Book, UK
• William Cornelison Schouten (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Here they saw such huge troops of whales, that they were forced to proceed with a great deal of caution for fear they should run their ship upon them.
    FROM: Schouten's Sixth Circumnavigation, (1618), Book, NULL
• Harris Coll (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: We set sail from the Elbe, wind N.E. in the ship called the Jonas-in-the-Whale.... Some say the whale can't open his mouth, but that is a fable.... They frequently climb up the masts to see whether they can see a whale, for the first discoverer has a ducat for his pains.... I was told of a whale taken near Shetland, that had above a barrel of herrings in his belly.... One of our harpooners told me that he caught once a whale in Spitzbergen that was white all over.
    FROM: A Voyage to Greenland, A.D. 1671. Harris Coll., (1671), NULL, NULL
• Robert Sibbald (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Several whales have come in upon this coast (Fife) Anno 1652, one eighty feet in length of the whale-bone kind came in, which (as I was informed), besides a vast quantity of oil, did afford 500 weight of baleen. The jaws of it stand for a gate in the garden of Pitferren.
    FROM: The History, Ancient and Modern, of the Sheriffdoms of Fife and Kinross, (1710), Book, UK
• Richard Strafford (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Myself have agreed to try whether I can master and kill this Sperma-ceti whale, for I could never hear of any of that sort that was killed by any man, such is his fierceness and swiftness.
    FROM: Richard Strafford's Letter from the Bermudas. Phil. Trans. A.D. 1668, (1668), Letter, UK
• Benjamin Harris (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Whales in the sea God's voice obey.
    FROM: N. E. Primer, (1690), Book, UK
• William Ambrosia Cowley (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: We saw also abundance of large whales, there being more in those southern seas, as I may say, by a hundred to one; than we have to the northward of us.
    FROM: Captain Cowley's Voyage round the Globe, A.D. 1729, (1729), Book, UK
• de Ulloa, Antonio (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: ... and the breath of the whale is frequently attended with such an insupportable smell, as to bring on a disorder of the brain.
    FROM: A voyage to South-America, (1758), Book, Spain
• Alexander Pope (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: To fifty chosen sylphs of special note, We trust the important charge, the petticoat. Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail, Tho' stuffed with hoops and armed with ribs of whale.
    FROM: Rape of the Lock, (1712), Poem, UK
• Oliver Goldsmith (2)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: If you should write a fable for little fishes, you would make them speak like great whales.
    FROM: Goldsmith to Johnson, (None), Conversation, Ireland
• James Cook (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: In the afternoon we saw what was supposed to be a rock, but it was found to be a dead whale, which some Asiatics had killed, and were then towing ashore. They seemed to endeavor to conceal themselves behind the whale, in order to avoid being seen by us.
    FROM: Cook's Voyages, (None), Book, UK
• Von Troil, Uno (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The larger whales, they seldom venture to attack. They stand in so great dread of some of them, that when out at sea they are afraid to mention even their names, and carry dung, lime-stone, juniper-wood, and some other articles of the same nature in their boats, in order to terrify and prevent their too near approach.
    FROM: Uno Von Troil's Letters on Banks's and Solander's Voyage to Iceland in 1772, (1772), Letter, Sweden
• Thomas Jefferson (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The Spermacetti Whale found by the Nantuckois, is an active, fierce animal, and requires vast address and boldness in the fishermen.
    FROM: Thomas Jefferson's Whale Memorial to the French minister in 1778, (1778), Letter, US
• Edmund Burke (2)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Spain—a great whale stranded on the shores of Europe.
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, Ireland
• Sir William Blackstone (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: A tenth branch of the king's ordinary revenue, said to be grounded on the consideration of his guarding and protecting the seas from pirates and robbers, is the right to royal fish, which are whale and sturgeon. And these, when either thrown ashore or caught near the coast, are the property of the king.
    FROM: Commentaries on the Laws of England, (1765), Book, UK
• William Falconer (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Soon to the sport of death the crews repair: Rodmond unerring o'er his head suspends The barbed steel, and every turn attends.
    FROM: The Shipwreck, (1762), Poem, UK
• William Cowper (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires, And rockets blew self driven, To hang their momentary fire Around the vault of heaven. So fire with water to compare, The ocean serves on high, Up-spouted by a whale in air, To express unwieldy joy.
    FROM: On the Queen's Visit to London, (1789), Poem, UK
• John Hunter (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at a stroke, with immense velocity.
    FROM: John Hunter's account of the dissection of a whale., (None), Conversation, UK
• William Paley (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main pipe of the water-works at London Bridge, and the water roaring in its passage through that pipe is inferior in impetus and velocity to the blood gushing from the whale's heart.
    FROM: Natural Theology, (1802), Book, UK
• Georges Cuvier (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet.
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, France
• James Colnett (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: In 40 degrees south, we saw Spermacetti Whales, but did not take any till the first of May, the sea being then covered with them.
    FROM: Colnett's Voyage for the Purpose of Extending the Spermaceti Whale Fishery, (1798), Book, UK
• James Montgomery (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: In the free element beneath me swam, Floundered and dived, in play, in chace, in battle, Fishes of every colour, form, and kind; Which language cannot paint, and mariner Had never seen; from dread Leviathan To insect millions peopling every wave: Gather'd in shoals immense, like floating islands, Led by mysterious instincts through that waste And trackless region, though on every side Assaulted by voracious enemies, Whales, sharks, and monsters, arm'd in front or jaw, With swords, saws, spiral horns, or hooked fangs.
    FROM: The World Before the Flood, (1813), Book, UK
• Charles Lamb (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Io! Paean! Io! sing. To the finny people's king. Not a mightier whale than this In the vast Atlantic is; Not a fatter fish than he, Flounders round the Polar Sea.
    FROM: The Triumph of the Whale, (1812), Poem, UK
• Obed Macy (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: In the year 1690 some persons were on a high hill observing the whales spouting and sporting with each other, when one observed: there—pointing to the sea—is a green pasture where our children's grand-children will go for bread.
    FROM: The History of Nantucket., (1835), Book, US
• Nathaniel Hawthorne (2)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: She came to bespeak a monument for her first love, who had been killed by a whale in the Pacific ocean, no less than forty years ago.
    FROM: Twice-Told Tales, (1837), Short story, US
• James Fenimore Cooper (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: No, Sir, 'tis a Right Whale,” answered Tom; “I saw his spout; he threw up a pair of as pretty rainbows as a Christian would wish to look at. He's a raal oil-butt, that fellow!
    FROM: The Pilot, (1823), Novel, US
• Johann Peter Eckermann (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The papers were brought in, and we saw in the Berlin Gazette that whales had been introduced on the stage there.
    FROM: Conversations with Goethe, (1848), Book, Germany
• Owen Chase (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: My God! Mr. Chace, what is the matter?” I answered, “we have been stove by a whale.
    FROM: Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Whale Ship Essex of Nantucket, which was attacked and finally destroyed by a large Sperm Whale in the Pacific Ocean., (1821), NULL, US
• Elizabeth Oakes Smith (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: A mariner sat in the shrouds one night, The wind was piping free; Now bright, now dimmed, was the moonlight pale, And the phospher gleamed in the wake of the whale, As it floundered in the sea.
    FROM: The Drowned Mariner, (1846), Poem, US
• William Scoresby (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The quantity of line withdrawn from the boats engaged in the capture of this one whale, amounted altogether to 10,440 yards or nearly six English miles.... Sometimes the whale shakes its tremendous tail in the air, which, cracking like a whip, resounds to the distance of three or four miles.
    FROM: An account of the Arctic regions, (1820), Book, UK
• Thomas Beale (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Mad with the agonies he endures from these fresh attacks, the infuriated Sperm Whale rolls over and over; he rears his enormous head, and with wide expanded jaws snaps at everything around him; he rushes at the boats with his head; they are propelled before him with vast swiftness, and sometimes utterly destroyed.... It is a matter of great astonishment that the consideration of the habits of so interesting, and, in a commercial point of view, so important an animal (as the Sperm Whale) should have been so entirely neglected, or should have excited so little curiosity among the numerous, and many of them competent observers, that of late years, must have possessed the most abundant and the most convenient opportunities of witnessing their habitudes.
    FROM: The Natural History of the Sperm Whale, (1839), Book, US
• Frederick Debell Bennett (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The Cachalot” (Sperm Whale) “is not only better armed than the True Whale” (Greenland or Right Whale) “in possessing a formidable weapon at either extremity of its body, but also more frequently displays a disposition to employ these weapons offensively and in manner at once so artful, bold, and mischievous, as to lead to its being regarded as the most dangerous to attack of all the known species of the whale tribe.
    FROM: Narrative of a Whaling Voyage Round the Globe, (1840), Book, UK
• J. Ross Browne (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: October 13. “There she blows,” was sung out from the mast-head. “Where away?” demanded the captain. “Three points off the lee bow, sir.” “Raise up your wheel. Steady!” “Steady, sir.” “Mast-head ahoy! Do you see that whale now?” “Ay ay, sir! A shoal of Sperm Whales! There she blows! There she breaches!” “Sing out! sing out every time!” “Ay Ay, sir! There she blows! there—there—thar she blows—bowes—bo-o-os!” “How far off?” “Two miles and a half.” “Thunder and lightning! so near! Call all hands!”
    FROM: Etchings of a Whaling Cruize, (1846), Book, Ireland/US
• William and Hussey, Cyrus M. Lay (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The Whale-ship Globe, on board of which vessel occurred the horrid transactions we are about to relate, belonged to the island of Nantucket.
    FROM: Narrative of the Globe Mutiny, (1828), Book, NULL
• Daniel Tyerman and George Bennet (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Being once pursued by a whale which he had wounded, he parried the assault for some time with a lance; but the furious monster at length rushed on the boat; himself and comrades only being preserved by leaping into the water when they saw the onset was inevitable.
    FROM: Missionary Journal of Tyerman and Bennett, (1832), Journal, NULL
• Daniel Webster (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: “Nantucket itself,” said Mr. Webster, “is a very striking and peculiar portion of the National interest. There is a population of eight or nine thousand persons living here in the sea, adding largely every year to the National wealth by the boldest and most persevering industry.”
    FROM: Report of Daniel Webster's Speech in the U. S. Senate, on the application for the Erection of a Breakwater at Nantucket. 1828., (1828), Speech, US
• Henry T. (Reverend) Cheever (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The whale fell directly over him, and probably killed him in a moment.
    FROM: "The Whale and his Captors, or The Whaleman's Adventures and the Whale's Biography, gathered on the Homeward Cruise of the Commodore Preble.”, (1851), Novel, NULL
• William Comstock (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: “If you make the least damn bit of noise,” replied Samuel, “I will send you to hell.”
    FROM: Life of Samuel Comstock (the mutineer), by his brother, William Comstock., (1843), Book, US
• John Ramsay McCulloch (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The voyages of the Dutch and English to the Northern Ocean, in order, if possible, to discover a passage through it to India, though they failed of their main object, laid-open the haunts of the whale.
    FROM: A dictionary, practical, theoretical and historical of commerce and commercial navigation, (1832), Book, UK
• Charles Wilkes (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: It is impossible to meet a whale-ship on the ocean without being struck by her near appearance. The vessel under short sail, with look-outs at the mast-heads, eagerly scanning the wide expanse around them, has a totally different air from those engaged in regular voyage.
    FROM: Currents and Whaling. U.S. Ex. Ex., (1845), Book, US
• R. P. Gillies (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Pedestrians in the vicinity of London and elsewhere may recollect having seen large curved bones set upright in the earth, either to form arches over gateways, or entrances to alcoves, and they may perhaps have been told that these were the ribs of whales.
    FROM: Tales of a Whale Voyager to the Arctic Ocean., (1826), Book, NULL
• James Rhodes (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: It is generally well known that out of the crews of Whaling vessels (American) few ever return in the ships on board of which they departed.
    FROM: Cruise in a Whale Boat, (1848), NULL, UK
• Joseph C. Hart (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Suddenly a mighty mass emerged from the water, and shot up perpendicularly into the air. It was the whale.
    FROM: Miriam Coffin or the Whale Fisherman, (1834), Novel, US
• W. A. G. (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: The Whale is harpooned to be sure; but bethink you, how you would manage a powerful unbroken colt, with the mere appliance of a rope tied to the root of his tail.
    FROM: Ribs and Trucks, (1842), Book, NULL
• Charles Darwin (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: On one occasion I saw two of these monsters (whales) probably male and female, slowly swimming, one after the other, within less than a stone's throw of the shore” (Terra Del Fuego), “over which the beech tree extended its branches.
    FROM: A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World, (1839), Book, UK
• Harry Halyard (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Stern all!' exclaimed the mate, as upon turning his head, he saw the distended jaws of a large Sperm Whale close to the head of the boat, threatening it with instant destruction;—'Stern all, for your lives!'
    FROM: Wharton the Whale Killer, (1848), Novel, NULL
• Joseph Edwards Carpenter and N. J. Sporle (1)
  • IN: Moby-Dick (1851) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale In his ocean home will be A giant in might, where might is right, And King of the boundless sea.
    FROM: Whale Song, (None), Song, NULL

Cited by

• Ralph Ellison (1)
  • IN: Invisible Man (1995) Bildungsroman, African-American Literature, Social Commentary, American
    EPIGRAPH: "You are saved," cried Captain Delano, more and more astonished and pained; "you are saved: what has cast such a shadow upon you?"
    FROM: The Piazza Tales, (1856), Book, US
• Michael Chabon (1)
  • IN: Telegraph Avenue (2012) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Call me Ishmael.
    FROM: Moby Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• Siddhartha Deb (1)
  • IN: The Point of Return (2002) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: It is not down in any map; true places never are.
    FROM: Moby-Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• Jack Gantos (1)
  • IN: The Trouble in Me (2015) Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: ...infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolescence' doubt (the common doom), then skepticism, then disbelief, then...
    FROM: Moby-Dick, (1851), NULL, US
• Joe Schreiber (1)
  • IN: Con Academy (2015) Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Yours, sir, if I mistake not, must be a beautiful soul -- one full of love and truth; for truth where beauty is, there must those be.
    FROM: The Confidence Man, (1857), Novel, US
• Todd Strasser (2)
  • IN: The Beast of Cretacea (2015) Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: For God's sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! Not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man's blood was spilled for it.
    FROM: Moby-Dick, (1851), Novel, US
  • IN: The Beasts of Cretacea (2015) Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: For God's sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! Not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man's blood was spilled for it.
    FROM: Moby-Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• Gregory Galloway (1)
  • IN: The 39 Deaths of Adam Strand (2013) Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Lo! I leave corpses wherever I go.
    FROM: Pierre, (1852), Book, US
• Pete Hautman (1)
  • IN: How to Steal a Car (2009) Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Whenever I find myself growing grim about the month; 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... 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.This is my substitute for pistol and ball.
    FROM: Moby-Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• Lucy Ellmann (1)
  • IN: Man or Mango? (1998) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Of whales in paint; in teeth; in wood; in sheet-iron; in stone; in mountains; in stars.
    FROM: Moby-Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• David Dyer (1)
  • IN: The Midnight Watch (2016) Fiction, Australian
    EPIGRAPH: Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure.
    FROM: Moby-Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• Ray Bradbury (1)
  • IN: Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.
    FROM: Moby Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• Paul Goldstein (1)
  • IN: Havana Requiem (2012) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: "You are saved," cried Captain Delano, more and more astonished and pained; "you are saved: what has cast such a shadow upon you?" "The negro." There was silence, while the moody man sat, slowly and unconsciously gathering his mantle about him, as if it were a pall. There was no more conversation that day.
    FROM: Benito Cereno, (1855), Novel, US
• Stephen King (1)
  • IN: Bag of Bones (1998) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Yes, Bartleby stay there behind your screen, thought I; I shall persecute you no more; you are harmless and nosieless as any of these old chairs; in short, I never feel so private as when I know you are here.
    FROM: Bartleby, (1853), Short story, US
• Lilith Saintcrow (1)
  • IN: Heaven's Spite (2010) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: What like a bullet can undeceive!
    FROM: Shiloh, A Requiem, (1862), Poem, US
• Robert Parker (1)
  • IN: A Catskill Eagle (1985) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he forever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than the other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.
    FROM: Moby-Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• John Langan (1)
  • IN: The Fisherman (NULL) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: s it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? … — the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like willful travelers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?
    FROM: Moby Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• Monique Roffey (1)
  • IN: Archipelago (2012) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are wedded forever.
    FROM: Moby Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• Amy Rowland (1)
  • IN: The Transcriptionist (2014) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Strike through the mask!
    FROM: Captain Ahab from Moby Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• Tatjana Soli (1)
  • IN: The Last Good Paradise (2015) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote.
    FROM: Moby-Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• Lisa Tucker (1)
  • IN: The Promised World (2009) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Yes, the scenery is magical -- the illusion is so complete... But every night when the curtain falls, truth comes in with darkness. No light shows from the mountain. To and fro I walk the piazza deck, haunted by Marianna's face, and many as real a story.
    FROM: The Piazza, (1856), Book, US
• Robert Stone (1)
  • IN: Damascus Gate (1998) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Enigma and evasion grow; And shall we never find Thee out?
    FROM: Clarel, (1876), Poem, US
• Dan Simmons (1)
  • IN: The Terror (2007) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: This elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of whiteness, when divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled with any object terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the furthest bounds. Witness the white bear of the poles, and the white shark of the tropics; what but their smooth, flaky whiteness makes them the transcendent horrors they are? That ghastly whiteness it is which imparts such an abhorrent mildness, even more loathesome than terrific, to the dumb gloating of their aspect. So that not the fierce-fanged tiger in his heraldic coat can so stagger courage as the white-shrouded bear or shark.
    FROM: Moby Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• T. Jefferson Parker (1)
  • IN: Iron River (2010) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: There, then, he sat, holding that imbecile candle in the heart of that almighty forlornness.
    FROM: Moby-Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• Anne Marsella (1)
  • IN: The Baby of Belleville (2010) Fiction, French
    EPIGRAPH: The people in a fiction, like the people in a play, must dress as nobody exactly dresses, talk as nobody exactly talks, act as nobody exactly acts. It is with fiction as with religion: it should present another world, and yet one to which we feel the tie.
    FROM: The Confidence Man, (1857), Novel, US
• David Mark (1)
  • IN: Cruel Mercy (2017) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance; not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment.
    FROM: Moby-Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• Brunonia Barry (1)
  • IN: The Map of True Places (2010) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: It is not down in any map; true places never are.
    FROM: Moby-Dick, or, the Whale, (1851), Novel, US
• Jeremy Robinson (1)
  • IN: Kronos (2008) Science Fiction, Thriller, Suspense, Horror fiction, Adventure fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: When beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang.
    FROM: Moby Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• Elizabeth Brundage (1)
  • IN: All Things Cease to Appear (2016) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Beneath those stars is a universe of gliding monsters.
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, US
• Eli Brown (1)
  • IN: Cinnamon and Gunpowder (2013) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.
    FROM: Moby-Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• Jennifer Egan (1)
  • IN: Manhattan Beach (2017) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.
    FROM: Moby-Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• Ron Rash (1)
  • IN: The World Made Straight (2006) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange and far more portentous—why, as we have seen, it is at once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the Christian’s Deity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind.
    FROM: Moby-Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• Hannah Tinti (2)
  • IN: The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley (2017) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: With a rapid, nameless impulse, in a superb lofty arch the bright steel spans the foaming distance, and quivers in the life spot of the whale. Instead of sparkling water, he now sprouts red blood. "That drove the spigot out of him!" cries Stubb. "'Tis July's immortal Fourth; all fountains must run wine to-day!"
    FROM: Moby-Dick, (1851), Novel, US
  • IN: The Twelves Lives of Samuel Hawley (2017) Fiction, American
    EPIGRAPH: With a rapid, nameless impulse, in a superb lofty arch the bright steel spans the foaming distance, and quivers in the life spot of the whale. Instead of sparkling water, he now spouts red blood. 'That drove the spigot out of him!' cries Stubb. ''Tis July's immortal Fourth; all fountains must run wine to-day!'
    FROM: Moby Dick, (1851), Novel, US
• David Poyer (1)
  • IN: The Whiteness of the Whale (2013) Thriller, American
    EPIGRAPH: For—absurd as it may seem— men are only made to comprehend things which they comprehend before (though but in the embryo, as it were). Things new it is impossible to make them comprehend; in their own hearts they really believe they do comprehend; outwardly look as though they did comprehend; wag their bushy tails comprehendingly; but for all that, they do not comprehend.
    FROM: Pierre; or, The Ambiguities, (1852), Novel, US
• Nuruddin Farah (1)
  • IN: Sardines (1981) Fiction, NULL
    EPIGRAPH: All dies! And not alone The aspiring trees and men and grass The poet's forms of beauty pass, And noblest deeds they are undone, Even truth itself decays, and, lo From truth's sad ashes pain and falsehood grow. All die! The workman dies, and, after him, the work.
    FROM: Pontoosuce, (1924), Poem, US
• Joe McGinniss (1)
  • IN: Blind Faith (1989) Novel, American
    EPIGRAPH: There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause: through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolescence's doubt (the common doom), then skepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more?
    FROM: Moby-Dick, (1851), Novel, US