"I would prefer not to." (A line spoken repeatedly by Bartleby). - Herman Melville

I would prefer not to.

and yet a child’s utter innocence is but its blank ignorance, and the innocence more or less wanes as intelligence waxes.

and there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he forever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than the other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.

"many is the time the poor fellows, just buttoning the necks of their clean frocks, are startled by the cry of "There she blows!" and away they fly to fight another whale, and go through the whole weary thing again. Oh! my friends, but this is man-killing! Yet this is life. For hardly have we mortals by long toilings extracted from this world's vast bulk its small but valuable sperm; and then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from its defilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of the soul; hardly is this done, when — There she blows! — the ghost is spouted up, and away we sail to fight some other world, and go through young life's old routine again."