718 Quotes by Joseph Conrad

In some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him--all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There's no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is detestable. And it has a fascination, too, which goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination--you know. Imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate.

The terrorist and the policeman both come from the same basket.

I am a great foe of favoritism in public life, in private life, and even in the delicate relationship of an author to his works.

When one has got to make correct entries, one comes to hate those savages--hate them to the death.

Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.

I do not know whether I have been a good seaman, but I know I have been a very faithful one.

I couldn't have felt more of lonely desolation somehow, had I been robbed of a belief or had missed my destiny in life...

The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness.

I have been called romantic. Well, that can't be helped. But stay. I seem to remember that I have been called a realist also. And as that charge too can be made out, let us try to live up to it, at whatever cost, for a change.