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"Nippers was a whiskered, sallow, and, upon the whole, rather piratical-looking young man of about five and twenty. I always deemed him the victim of two evil powers - ambition and indigestion."
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"Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping , like sand, through our fingers."

"There's two ways to become a famous Poet, find that one person that knows somebody, that knows somebody, that knows somebody. Or die trying."

"It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless hopes dampened through immersive dousings in the darkness which religions have explored. This is a particular priority for secular Americans, perhaps the most anxious and disappointed people on earth, for their nation infuses them with the most extreme hopes about what they may be able to achieve in their working lives and relationships."

"Your problem is in thinking the sky's the limit. Why set limits?"

"Having this, we want that.Owning some, we want more.Standing here, we wish to be there.If it's impossible, we struggle to make it happen.Why are we like this? Why not be content with some, here, and now? Why is enough not enough? Because humans are ambitious creatures not meant to be idle or fruitless. We strive to learn, to grow, to achieve, to amass; therefore, we will never be content."

"Perfection may be an island out of reach, but setting your sails toward it makes for a magnificent voyage."
Explore more quotes by Herman Melville

"Hope is the struggle of the soul, breaking loose from what is perishable, and attesting her eternity."

"He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it."

"Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope."

"There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes his whole universe for a vast practical joke."

"Let us speak, though we show all our faults and weaknesses, - for it is a sign of strength to be weak, to know it, and out with it - not in a set way and ostentatiously, though, but incidentally and without premeditation."

"There is one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath."
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