Everything Bartleby says in Herman Melville’s “Bartleby”:
“I would prefer not to.”
“I would prefer not to.”
“I would prefer not to,” said he.
“What is wanted?”
“I would prefer not to,” he said, and gently disappeared behind the screen.
“I would prefer not to.”
“I prefer not to,” he replied in a flute-like tone.
“I would prefer not to.”
“I would prefer not to.”
“I prefer not.”
“I prefer not to,” he respectfully and slowly said, and mildly disappeared.
“I would prefer not to.”
“I would prefer not to.”
“At present I prefer to give no answer,” he said, and retired into his hermitage.
“At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable,” was his mildly cadaverous reply.
“I would prefer to be left alone here,” said Bartleby, as if offended at being mobbed in his privacy.
Upon asking him why he did not write, he said that he had decided upon doing no more writing.
“No more.”
“Do you not see the reason for yourself,” he indifferently replied.
“I have given up copying,” he answered, and slid aside.
“I would prefer not,” he replied, with his back still towards me.
“Not yet; I am occupied.”
“I would prefer not to quit you,” he replied, gently emphasizing the not.
“Sitting upon the banister,” he mildly replied.
“No; I would prefer not to make any change.”
“There is too much confinement about that. No, I would not like a clerkship; but I am not particular.”
“I would prefer not to take a clerkship,” he rejoined, as if to settle that little item at once.
“I would not like it at all; though, as I said before, I am not particular.”
“No, I would prefer to be doing something else.”
“Not at all. It does not strike me that there is any thing definite about that. I like to be stationary. But I am not particular.”
“I know you,” he said, without looking round,—”and I want nothing to say to you.”
“I know where I am,” he replied, but would say nothing more, and so I left him.