A Quote by Nathaniel Philbrick

The great lesson I get from 'Moby-Dick' is that when the times are bad, when there is great foreboding, there are still ways to go about living. It's through Ishmael that I find a kind of overall cosmic approach to a meaningful life in this meaningless world.
I think I'm a bit like Ishmael in 'Moby Dick': a story teller and an observer in his own crisis.
We have our great days and our bad days. No matter what bad day I go through or strike out four times in a row, I still want to have that great attitude and go after the game and go talk to the kids and not worry about the game and let them know that this is what matters.
When I was young, I kept trying to read 'Moby-Dick', and I couldn't get that far into it. And I kept thinking, 'Well, man, if I can't read the great American novel, I could never be a writer.' And this bothered me a great deal.
It is OK to be happy in life. Even through all the strife, maybe especially during times of great pain and suffering. We still have to be able to stay close to that joy because we can't save the world in a bad mood.
Besides all those whaling details, Moby Dick is about someone who's looking for something so huge, something they've wanted all their life, yet they know when they find it, it will kill them.
It's very good to get through them (drugs) while you're still young and then talk about how great or bad it was for the rest of your life.
If the sun is shining, stand in it- yes, yes, yes. Happy times are great, but happy times pass- they have to- because time passes. The pursuit of happiness is more elusive; it is life-long, and it is not goal-centred. What you are pursuing is meaning- a meaningful life... There are times when it will go so wrong that you will be barely alive, and times when you realise that being barely alive, on your own terms, is better than living a bloated half-life on someone else's terms.
That's what so great about making movies. It's that you get to do stuff you never would be able to do in real life. You get to go to a recording studio, you get to go to Navy ships and fly all over the world for press. And it's just a great job.
I love to read. I was in AP English in high school, and we were assigned books every few months. 'Moby Dick' and 'The Great Gatsby' are two of my favorite ones.
The great thing is that young talent isn't tied to a how-to model for starting a line; we get to find new ways to go about doing things. And don't let people tell you you can't. Go find a way to show that you can.
When I go on vacation, I take very few clothes and a whole lot of books. It's the most soothing thing in the world. Reading 'Moby-Dick' is like being in a time machine. I almost feel as excited as the first time I read it and I always find something new.
Suffering is our best teacher because it hangs onto us and keeps us in its grip until we have learnt that particular lesson. Only then does suffering let go. If we haven’t learnt our lesson, we can be quite sure that the same lesson is going to come again, because life is nothing but an adult education class, If we don’t pass in any of the subjects, we just have to sit the examination again. Whatever lesson we have missed, we will get it again. That is why we find ourselves reacting to similar situations in similar ways many times.
The sublime moment seems to be only a product of allowing yourself to get through, to get to a lot of stuff in your life, write about a lot of stuff and not edit yourself. That is a great lesson to learn for anybody that writes or creates in anyway, to be able to make something without being good or bad.
Writing, for me, is a combination of objective and subjective approach. You take an objective approach at times to get you through things, and you take a subjective approach at other times, and that allows you to find an emotional experience for the audience.
Everything you go through can be a lesson for you. Lack of forgiveness can manifest itself in different ways -in some lives it can be through sickness in someone else's life it can be through a bad attitude -or maybe through torn relationships and being angry all the time. I don't know how unforgiveness will manifest itself in your life, but what I can tell you is: it isn't worth it! All of us have done something we need forgiveness for.
As any student of literature knows, the books that last are often not the books that are most popular when they are written. Both 'Moby Dick' and 'The Great Gatsby' were complete failures, critically and commercially, when they first appeared.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!