Moby-Dick

Call me Ishmael. The friendliest funeral arrangement in literature.

Ahab nailed a gold doubloon to the mast and the whole crew's eyes changed owners.

The whale chapters I skipped at twenty are the best parts at forty. The physics is the poetry.

Queequeg's coffin becomes the life buoy. Melville never wasted a symbol.

Ishmael and Queequeg sharing a bed: the book's actual love story, no footnotes needed.

Fedallah's coiled prophecy, the rope wraps the wrong neck. Fate's a harpooner too.

The monkey rope, Ishmael tied to Queequeg. We're all leashed to someone's skill.

Ahab doesn't hate the whale. He hates a universe that wounded him once.

Starbuck almost took the gun. The officer with the good idea always hesitates one chapter too long.

Carried out of it: some obsessions pay in doubloons. Most pay in orphans.