Ahab Quotes

“Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed — while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“Ahab and aguish lay stretched together in one hammock.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“The whale without Ahab is just a whale. A whale with no problems. A stress-free whale." - Julian Blackthorn”
― Cassandra Clare, Lady Midnight

“She felt like Captain Ahab, for the first time sighting his great white whale.”
― Stephen King, Doctor Sleep

“one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duelist at his foe, blindly seeking with a six-inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the whale. That captain was Ahab.”
― Herman Melville

“I leave a white and turbid wake;
pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I sail. The envious billows sidelong
swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass. Yonder, by the
ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow
plumbs the blue. The diver sun --slow dived from noon, --goes down; my soul
mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy
that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it bright with many a gem; i, the wearer, see not its far flashings; but darkly feel that i wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. 'Tis iron --that I know--not gold. 'Tis split, too --that I feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight!”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx’s in the desert. “Speak, thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed—while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? … Yet it is bright with many a gem; I, the wearer, see not its far flashings; but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzling confounds. ’Tis Iron – that I know – not gold.”
― Herman Melville

“What I've dared, I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad -- Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! - Capt. Ahab.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“...you would do well to turn from Chapter XXXVI to Chapter CXXXIII without further delay, thus saving nearly a hundred chapters without anybody's knowing the difference if you keep quiet. After all, Ahab isn't the only one entitled to be a skipper.”
― Richard Armour, The Classics Reclassified

“Pero todos comparten la misma falla trágica; todos tuvieron la opción de salvarse y tomaron el camino de la catástrofe; y sus novelas son dedicados estudios de ese largo error y de sus consecuencias.”
― Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Viajes con un mapa en blanco

“Mean king Ahab kept on being mean.”
― Karyn Henley, The Beginner's Bible

“Perhaps it is no overstatement to say, therefore, that Moby Dick’s main character is, not Ahab; nor the albino sperm whale; nor Nature, or the ocean; but rather the very ability to conscientiously tell a story well.”
― Bernardo E. Lopes, The underrated narrator: The important role Ishmael plays in Moby Dick