“Leviathan is not the biggest fish; — I have heard of Krakens.”

—  Herman Melville

Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 1851); published in Memories of Hawthorne (1897) by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, p. 158
Context: I am heartily sorry I ever wrote anything about you — it was paltry. Lord, when shall we be done growing? As long as we have anything more to do, we have done nothing. So, now, let us add Moby-Dick to our blessing, and step from that. Leviathan is not the biggest fish; — I have heard of Krakens.

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Herman Melville 144
American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet 1818–1891

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