The Daily Dick: Musings From the Greatest Novel Ever

"I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it—would they let me—since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in."

Musing: Here we have Ishmael at his best - funny and deep and adventerous. The idea of our world as an inn is a motif that will play out throughout the book and the truly important idea that all humans deserve a chance begins in this first chapter.