Books Quotes by Herman Melville

I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb.

— Herman Melville

For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.

— Herman Melville

It is not the purpose of literature to purvey news. For news consult the Almanac de Gotha.

— Herman Melville

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.

— Herman Melville

A book in a man's brain is better off than a book bound in calf - at any rate it is safer…

— Herman Melville

“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the…

— Herman Melville

Of all human events, perhaps, the publication of a first volume of verses is the most insignificant; but though a matter of…

— Herman Melville

If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how then with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those…

— Herman Melville

“...the books that prove most agreeable, grateful, and companionable, are those we pick up by chance here and there; those which seem…

— Herman Melville

The names of all fine authors are fictitious ones, far more so than that of Junius,--simply standing, as they do, for the…

— Herman Melville

Book! You lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places. You'll do to give us the bare words and…

— Herman Melville

“[N]ot only is the most marvellous event in this book collaborated by plain facts of the present day, but that these marvels…

— Herman Melville

“been forgotten, but his longest novel, Moby-Dick — largely considered a failure during his lifetime, and responsible for Melville's drop in popularity…

— Herman Melville

The world is forever babbling of originality; but there never yet was an original man, in the sense intended by the world;…

— Herman Melville

I don't know but a book in a man's brain is better off than a book bound in calf--at any rate it…

— Herman Melville

“But I must be content with only one more and a concluding illustration; a remarkable and most significant one, by which you…

— Herman Melville

That author who draws a character, even though to common view incongruous in its parts, as the flying-squirrel, and, at differentperiods, as…

— Herman Melville

“But how? Genius in the Sperm Whale? Has the Sperm Whale ever written a book, spoken a speech? No, his great genius…

— Herman Melville

“That mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true — not true, or…

— Herman Melville

I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb. Ineffable socialities are in me. I would sit down and…

— Herman Melville

“I'll read it off, straight out of the book. Come, Almanack! To begin: there's Aries, or the Ram— lecherous dog, he begets…

— Herman Melville

Books, gentlemen, are a species of men, and introduced to them you circulate in the "very best society" that this world can…

— Herman Melville

Nearly all literature, in one sense, is made up of guide-books. Old ones tell us the ways our fathers went, through the…

— Herman Melville