Joseph Conrad

Kisses are the remnants of paradise.

— Joseph Conrad

“The fascination of the abomination.”

— Joseph Conrad

“Mistah Kurtz--he dead.”

— Joseph Conrad

The mind of man is capable of anything.

— Joseph Conrad

“The world is to the young.”

— Joseph Conrad

“There is a weird power in a spoken word.”

— Joseph Conrad

Never test another man by your own weakness.

— Joseph Conrad

We can never cease to be ourselves.

— Joseph Conrad

My task is to make you hear, feel and see. That and no more, and that is everything.

— Joseph Conrad

The air of the New World seems favorable to the art of declamation.

— Joseph Conrad

“Men act badly sometimes without being much worse than others,”

— Joseph Conrad

“There is death in the folds of her skirt and blood about her feet. She is for no man.”

— Joseph Conrad

All roads are long which lead to one's heart's desire.

— Joseph Conrad

He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable.

— Joseph Conrad

“Unhappy Europe! Thou shalt perish by the moral insanity of thy children!”

— Joseph Conrad

Writing in English is like throwing mud at a wall.

— Joseph Conrad

“and Kurtz’s life was running swiftly, too, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time.”

— Joseph Conrad

“For the dead can live only with the exact intensity and quality of the life imparted to them by the living.”

— Joseph Conrad

“I have been very happy—very fortunate—very proud,' she went on. 'Too fortunate. Too happy for a little while. And now I am…

— Joseph Conrad

“It was inconceivable how he had existed, how he had succeeded in getting so far, how he had managed to remain --…

— Joseph Conrad

I remember my youth... the feeling that I could last forever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men.

— Joseph Conrad

A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea. If he tries to climb…

— Joseph Conrad

Things and men have always a certain sense, a certain side by which they must be got hold of if one wants…

— Joseph Conrad

They had behind them, to my mind, the terrific suggestiveness of words heard in dreams, of phrases spoken in nightmares.

— Joseph Conrad

There is, as every schoolboy knows in this scientific age, a very close chemical relation between coal and diamonds. It is the…

— Joseph Conrad

Lights of ships moved in the fairway-a great stir of lights going up and going down. And farther west on the upper…

— Joseph Conrad

“And yet is not mankind itself, pushing on its blind way, driven by a dream of its greatness and its power upon…

— Joseph Conrad

“He was little more than a voice. And I heard-him-it-this voice-other voices-all of them were so little more than voices-and the memory…

— Joseph Conrad

Of all the inanimate objects, of all men's creations, books are the nearest to us for they contain our very thoughts, our…

— Joseph Conrad

“But sometimes, by the deserving and the fortunate, even that task is accomplished. And when it is accomplished— behold!— all the truth…

— Joseph Conrad

“I am stupid, am I not? What more can I want? If you ask them who is brave--who is true--who is just--who…

— Joseph Conrad

“Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare, that could not see the flame…

— Joseph Conrad

“Going up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and…

— Joseph Conrad

“...and the sound of her low voice seemed to have the accompaniment of all the other sounds, full of mystery, desolation, and…

— Joseph Conrad

The revolutionary spirit is mighty convenient in this, that it frees one from all scruples as regards ideas. Its hard absolute optimism…

— Joseph Conrad

“I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money…

— Joseph Conrad

Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality. I have been for many years a teacher of languages. It…

— Joseph Conrad

“A half-naked, betel-chewing pessimist stood upon the bank of the tropical river, on the edge of the still and immense forests; a…

— Joseph Conrad

“He is romantic—romantic,” he repeated. “And that is very bad—very bad. . . . Very good, too,” he added. “But is he?”…

— Joseph Conrad

“I began to feel slightly uneasy. You know I am not used to such ceremonies, and there was something ominous in the…

— Joseph Conrad