Moby-Dick, or The Whale

I was never assigned this book in school. Recently I've been reading real life accounts of sea exploration and I got it in my head to give Melville's fictional sea tale a read for the first time. I also have cetaceaphobia so I thought this story might help me confront my fears somewhat without having to see an actual leviathan in person. I was wondering if anyone else has read Moby Dick, or anything else by Melville, and what your thoughts are.

Here's a passage I found particularly interesting:

"A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for."