Captain Ahab Last Quotes

Over his head towards the fire, seemed invoking some curse or some blessing on the toil. But, as Ahab looked up, he slid aside. "What's that bunch of lucifers dodging about there for?" muttered Stubb, looking on from the forecastle. "That Parsee smells fire like a fusee; and smells of it himself, like a hot musket's powder-pan." At last the shank, in one ~ Herman Melville

He's a grand, ungodly, god-like man, Captain Ahab; doesn't speak much; but, when he does speak, then you may well listen. ~ Herman Melville

His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirling in the eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duellist at his foe, blindly seeking with a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the whale. That captain was Ahab. And then it was, that suddenly sweeping his sickle-shaped lower jaw benieath him, Moby Dick had reaped away Ahab's leg. ~ Herman Melville

She felt like Captain Ahab, for the first time sighting his great white whale. ~ Stephen King

Small reason was there to doubt, then, that ever since that almost fatal encounter, Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness against the whale, all the more fell for that in his frantic morbidness he at last came to identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but all his intellectual and spiritual exasperations. The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung. ~ Herman Melville

Themes of descent often turn on the struggle between the titanic and the demonic within the same person or group. In Moby Dick, Ahab's quest for the whale may be mad and "monomaniacal," as it is frequently called, or even evil so far as he sacrifices his crew and ship to it, but evil or revenge are not the point of the quest. The whale itself may be only a "dumb brute," as the mate says, and even if it were malignantly determined to kill Ahab, such an attitude, in a whale hunted to the death, would certainly be understandable if it were there. What obsesses Ahab is in a dimension of reality much further down than any whale, in an amoral and alienating world that nothing normal in the human psyche can directly confront.
The professed quest is to kill Moby Dick, but as the portents of disaster pile up it becomes clear that a will to identify with (not adjust to) what Conrad calls the destructive element is what is really driving Ahab. Ahab has, Melville says, become a "Prometheus" with a vulture feeding on him. The axis image appears in the maelstrom or descending spiral ("vortex") of the last few pages, and perhaps in a remark by one of Ahab's crew: "The skewer seems loosening out of the middle of the world." But the descent is not purely demonic, or simply destructive: like other creative descents, it is partly a quest for wisdom, however fatal the attaining of such wisdom may be. A relation reminiscent of Lear and the fool develops at the end between Ahab and the little ~ Northrop Frye

For, thought Ahab, while even the highest earthly felicities ever have a certain unsignifying pettiness lurking in them, but, at bottom, all heartwoes, a mystic significance, and, in some men, an archangelic grandeur; so do their diligent tracings-out not blue the obvious deduction. To trail the genealogies of these high mortal miseries, carries us at last among the sourceless primogenitures of the gods; so that, in the face of all the glad, hay-making suns, and the softcymballing, round the harvest-moons, we must needs give in to this: that the gods themselves are not for ever glad. The ineffaceable, sad birth-mark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of sorrow in the signers. ~ Herman Melville

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

The cosmic conflict between good and evil is joined; chaotic sea and demonic sea monster verses the morally outraged man, Captain Ahab. In this boat, however, there is one man who does nothing. He doesn't hold an oar; he doesn't perspire; he doesn't shout. He is languid in the crash and the cursing. This man is the harpooner, quiet and poised, waiting. And then this sentence: 'To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooners of his world must start to their feet out of idleness, and not out of toil.' Was this the confirmation to cultivate what I had named an 'unbusy pastor'? ~ Eugene H. Peterson

I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too, Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow; but I came here to hunt whales, not my commander's vengeance. How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Captain Ahab? It will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market. ~ Herman Melville

Ahab and aguish lay stretched together in one hammock. ~ Herman Melville

Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last ~ Sena Jeter Naslund

Well," he said, "this isn't too bad. My left leg is broken, but at least I'm right-legged. That's pretty fortunate."
"Gee," one of the other employees murmured. "I thought he'd say something more along the lines of 'Aaaaah! My leg! My leg!'"
"If someone could just help me get to my foot," Phil said, "I'm sure that I can get back to work."
"Don't be ridiculous," Violet said. "You need to go to a hospital."
"Yes, Phil," another worker said. "We have those coupons from last month, fifty percent off a cast at the Ahab Memorial Hospital. Two of us will chip in and get your leg all fixed up. I'll call for an ambulance right away. ~ Lemony Snicket

Captain Ahab drowned, he reminded himself; it was the trimmer, Ishmael, who survived. ~ Salman Rushdie

As Herman Melville wrote of that seagoing monster of a man Captain Ahab, "All mortal greatness is but disease. ~ Nathaniel Philbrick

All things that are on earth shall wholly pass away,
Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye. ~ William C. Bryant

All things pass in time. We are far less significant than we imagine ourselves to be. All that we are, all that we have wrought, is but a shadow, no matter how durable it may seem. One day, when the last man has breathed his last breath, the sun will shine, the mountains will stand, the rain will fall, the streams will whisper - and they will not miss him. ~ Jim Butcher

As the barman's hand rose from beneath the bar, Cabal was filled with a presentiment and a strange foreboding that he hadn't felt since the last time he'd watched the nightmare corpse city of R'lyeh rise, effulgent with the ineffable and fetid with fish, rise from the depths of the Pacific. ~ Jonathan L. Howard

Part of my job being a leader and captain of the team is not just to play well and lead well but find a way to make everybody around me better. ~ Andrew Whitworth

You're probably wondering why there's never any good news.
I mean, I've been doing this job a few months now. I've been soaking up the paper every week, same as you, and watching the same newsfeeds as you. I got the same list burned into the front of my head as you. Death. Horror. Bad sex. Living nightmares. Each day a little further down the spiral.
There's never any good news because they know you.
I mean, here's the top of today's column that I discarded: I had a really good time last night down the bar with my assistant and some cheerfully doomed sex fiends of our acquaintance.
No one ever sold newspapers by telling you the truth; life just ain't that bad. ~ Warren Ellis

The Romantic poets were the prototype ramblers, and I've often found myself following in their footsteps - although perhaps not all of their footsteps since a typical walk for Samuel T. Coleridge might last two days and cover 145km. ~ Arthur Smith

I'm afraid of this. It's insane that I'm here. You're the last person I should fall for."
His big hand cupped the side of my face. "Don't you know all great love stories never should have been? That's what makes them great."
"Is that what you think this is…the start to a great love story?"
"Do you want it to be? ~ A.L. Jackson

What's the matter, Freckles?" he said, pressing a light kiss to the tip of my nose.
"What changed?" I blurted out.
He drew back. "Changed?"
"You seemed like you were trying to keep distance between us before, but after last night…"
"I should get a medal for managing to keep my hands off you that long."
"It was only a few days," I reminded him dryly.
"Felt like a lifetime."
"So those first kisses… you liked them?"
His eyes widened. "You thought that I didn't?"
"Well, after that you didn't touch me."
"Shit," he swore beneath his breath and ran a hand over his head. "I liked it too much. The sparks between us are so hot, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to stop. I was afraid I would scare you off. Thank God I did because you're so innocent."
Innocent? Ugh.
I folded my arms across my chest. "So what changed your mind?"
His smile was sexy and filled with innuendo. "I realized you could handle the heat."
I still wasn't so sure, but I didn't tell him that. "Well, you are definitely hot."
He grinned. He had such a big ego. "How hot?"
I shook my head. "So hot your touch leaves torch marks on my skin."
He whistled between his teeth. "Damn. I'm good. ~ Cambria Hebert

Well, she wore far too much rouge last night, and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of desperation in a woman. ~ Oscar Wilde

You can use logic to justify just about anything, that's its power and it's flaw. ~ Captain Katherine Janeway

Love the phoenix cannot be trapped
nor in heaven or earth can it be named;

no one has yet discovered its address:
its desert holds not a single footprint.

The world drains the last drops from its cup
though itself it is not outside the glass;

dawn and dusk I caress its face, its tresses,
though where it is no day or night exists.

Morning-breeze, if you pass its lane
I have no message for it but this:

My repose, who are my very life, without you
I can take no single breath at ease. ~ Fakhruddin 'Iraqi

Based on every statement I've heard out of any Republican in the last two years, the Israelis are controlling our government. ~ Bill Maher

She thought about the last car ride she had taken. It had only been a few days ago but it felt like she had journeyed for a lifetime since. The universe worked in strange ways. What if everything that had ever happened to Tina had happened so that one day she could rescue Lockie? It seemed too cruel an idea but you never knew. Or maybe she was just in the right place at the right time. Shit just happened . . ~ Nicole Trope

Hurry up, he'll be coming back pretty soon!"

Lynda spelled with a "y" Corgill, who was two years behind Dara, Mackenzie, and Jennifer, and had just completed her sophomore year, squeezed the hot glue gun into the door lock of the headmaster's office. Shelby Andrews, her accomplice and the newest resident to be accepted at Wood Rose, stood watch.

"I see the lights of the truck. Hurry! He's coming back! Are you finished?"

Lynda gave the metal apparatus one last squeeze, filling the lock with the quick-drying cement glue guaranteed to harden on contact. "Finished."

In the soft illumination of the crescent moon high overhead, the two girls, barefooted and wearing dark blue pajamas, ran across the lawn crisscrossed by dark, elongated shadows and dampened by night-cooled air to the maintenance shed where they placed the glue gun on the top shelf where it was normally kept. With their task completed, they quickly returned to the dormitory, to the far end from where Ms. Larkins slept, and crawled through the open window. Within minutes they were back in their rooms, in their individual beds, and sound asleep. The sleep of innocent angels.

It would soon be light; and Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women would start another day. ~ Barbara Casey

Diana go slowly out with the others, to walk home alone through the Birch Path and Violet Vale, it was all the former could do to keep her seat and refrain from rushing impulsively after her chum. A lump came into her throat, and she hastily retired behind the pages of her uplifted Latin grammar to hide the tears in her eyes. Not for worlds would Anne have had Gilbert Blythe or Josie Pye see those tears. "But, oh, Marilla, I really felt that I had tasted the bitterness of death, as Mr. Allan said in his sermon last Sunday, when I saw Diana go out alone," she said mournfully that night. "I thought how splendid it would have been if Diana had only been going to study for the Entrance, too. But we can't have things perfect in this imperfect world, as Mrs. Lynde says. Mrs. ~ L.M. Montgomery

One of the last books I read was 'Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime' by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. It gives a really good behind-the-scenes look at the campaigns. I didn't ask the president how accurate it was. I wouldn't ask him that. ~ Gary Locke

The subculture of felons is in great vogue among adolescents. Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and so forth allow us Republicans to say to America's young people, 'We be thugs.' The GOP may capture the youth vote at last. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

She'd just had the best sex of her life, with an ex-boyfriend she'd spent the last decade pretending didn't exist, in his adorable half-finished, renovating-by-himself one room schoolhouse. Unsettled wouldn't even begin to describe how Laney should be feeling, and it didn't matter, because how she actually felt was pretty damn good. ~ Zoe York

Silence is the last thing the world will ever hear from me. ~ Marlee Matlin

The last thing I would want for my future daughter would be to starve herself because she thought a thigh gap was necessary to be deemed attractive, ~ Robyn Lawley

Far away, where the swallows take refuge in winter, lived a king who had eleven sons and one daughter, Elise. The eleven brothers
they were all princes
used to go to school with stars on their breasts and swords at their sides. They wrote upon golden slates with diamond pencils, and could read just as well without a book as with one, so there was no mistake about their being princes. Their sister Elise sat upon a little footstool of looking-glass, and she has a picture-book which had cost the half of a kingdom. Oh, these children were very happy; but it was not to last thus forever. ~ Hans Christian Andersen

If there be any man who thinks the ruin of a race of men a small matter, compared with the last decoration and completions of hisown comfort,
who would not so much as part with his ice- cream, to save them from rapine and manacles, I think I must not hesitate to satisfy that man that also his cream and vanilla are safer and cheaper by placing the negro nation on a fair footing than by robbing them. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

No one's said a word to them since they said we couldn't see you." Nathaniel's heart skipped a beat. The heat that gnawed at his chest was an ugly mix of gratitude and shame. He tried to speak but had to clear his throat before trying again. "But why? I've done nothing but lie to them. I willingly put them all in danger so I could play a little longer. They got hurt last night because of me. Why would they protect me now?" "You are a Fox," Andrew said, like it was that simple, and maybe it was. Nathaniel dropped his eyes and worked his jaw, fighting for a center he was quickly losing hold of. ~ Nora Sakavic

Cellphone in his luxurious Manhattan apartment, on the last day they spent together. Jett had been sitting in the chair opposite from the ~ J.C. Reed

Jen- I have to tell you - I haven't said this before but I've wanted to + now I want to say it all the time: I LOVE YOU. I love you on the page + I love you in the library + in the coffee shop + in the last row of the Varsity. I love you here. I love you in negitive space - ok, i don't know exactly what that means but i'm pretty sure its true - + I love who you have been + who you will be. I should say this to you in person, and i'm going to - over & over - but I think I needed to say it here first. Jennifer Heyward, I love you. ~ Doug Dorst J. J. Abrams

I used to hate looking at my markings. But the captain taught me they don't mean anything. Because I'm more than the sum of my mistakes. ~ Melissa Landers

By the Reagan era, the 'culture of poverty' had become a cornerstone of conservative ideology: poverty was caused not by low wages or a lack of jobs but by bad attitudes and faulty lifestyles. The poor were dissolute, promiscuous, prone to addiction and crime, unable to 'defer gratification' or possibly even set an alarm clock. The last thing they could be trusted with was money. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich

Adolescents have the right to be themselves. The fact that you were the belle of the ball, the captain of the lacrosse team, the president of your senior class, Phi Beta Kappa, or a political activist doesn't mean that your teenager will be or should be the same ... Likewise, the fact that you were a wallflower, uncoordinated, and a C student shouldn't mean that you push your child to be everything you were not. ~ Laurence Steinberg

Angel clicked on a few more pictures on the screen, and Alex made small talk about the place. Then he finally walked away. He stopped just before walking out.

"Did Valerie say anything else to Sarah?"
Angel glanced back at him. "About what?"
"You know about that guy she's seeing."

Angel turned his attention back to the computer. "No, not really."

Alex frowned. He wasn't one of those guys, so he wasn't about to keep asking. If Angel knew anything, he'd tell him. He'd just have to wait until the rehearsal dinner.

He started back out when Angel spoke up. "I'm not sure, because she didn't actually tell me, but I overheard Sarah on the phone last night. It sounded like Valerie was telling her about him."

"Yeah, what did you hear?"

Angel looked up trying to remember. Something seemed to come to him but he hesitated. "I don't think you wanna hear it, Alex. I know I wouldn't."

Alex squeezed the doorway with his hand. What the hell could he have heard? "Tell me."

Angel shook his head and looked back at the monitor. "Only reason I caught my attentions was because I overheard Sarah ask her something about wearing lingerie."

Alex felt the hair on the back of his neck rise and his gut tightened. He banged his fist against the doorway. He didn't need to hear any more. Angel had been right that's the last thing he needed right now. He charged back out of the office, infuriated wi ~ Elizabeth Reyes