Ingrid Ellis’s Reviews > Moby-Dick or, The Whale > Status Update

“it's better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one”

“Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm.”

Ishmael contemplates whether he should join Queepeg in worshiping the idol, even though he is a Christian. I like his reasoning: “But what is worship?—to do the will of God—that is worship. And what is the will of God?—to do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me—that is the will of God.”

“Queequeg was a creature in the transition state—neither caterpillar nor butterfly. He was just enough civilized to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manner. … If he had not been a small degree civilized, he very probably would not have troubled himself with boots at all; but then, if he had not been still a savage, he never would have dreamt of getting under the bed to put them on.”

“Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.”