Quote

His very existence was improbable, inexplicable, and altogether bewildering. He was an insoluble problem. It was inconceivable how he had existed, how he had succeeded in getting so far, how he had managed to remain -- why he did not instantly disappear.

Joseph Conrad

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Joseph Conrad
Age: 66 †
Born: 1857
Born: December 3
Died: 1924
Died: August 3
Author
Autobiographer
Essayist
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Berdichev
Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski
Instantly
Getting
Succeeded
Problem
Altogether
Managed
Bewildering
Existed
Insoluble
Inconceivable
Disappear
Inexplicable
Remain
Improbable
Existence

More quotes by Joseph Conrad

Image
But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself and, by heavens I tell you, it had gone mad.
Joseph Conrad
Image
To be busy with material affairs is the best preservative against reflection, fears, doubts ... all these things which stand in the way of achievement. I suppose a fellow proposing to cut his throat would experience a sort of relief while occupied in stropping his razor carefully.
Joseph Conrad
Image
The artist in his calling of interpreter creates because he must. He is so much of a voice that, for him, silence is like death
Joseph Conrad
Image
The condemned social order has not been built up on paper and ink, and I don't fancy that a combination of paper and ink will ever put an end to it.
Joseph Conrad
Image
I don't like work... but I like what is in work - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, not for others - which no other man can ever know.
Joseph Conrad
Image
For all that has been said of the love that certain natures (on shore) have professed for it, for all the celebrations it has been the object of in prose and song, the sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.
Joseph Conrad
Image
The human heart is vast enough to contain all the world.
Joseph Conrad
Image
Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.
Joseph Conrad
Image
It is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self knowledge.
Joseph Conrad
Image
Ah! These commercial interests -- spoiling the finest life under the sun. Why must the sea be used for trade -- and for war as well?...It would have been so much nicer just to sail about, with here and there a port and a bit of land to stretch one's legs on, buy a few books and get a change of cooking for a while.
Joseph Conrad
Image
The blight of futility that lies in wait for men's speeches had fallen upon our conversation and made it a thing of empty sounds.
Joseph Conrad
Image
A nickname may be the best record of a success. That's what I call putting the face of a joke upon the body of a truth.
Joseph Conrad
Image
The East Wind, an interloper in the dominions of Westerly Weather, is an impassive-faced tyrant with a sharp poniard held behind his back for a treacherous stab.
Joseph Conrad
Image
The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come and wait for the turn of the tide.
Joseph Conrad
Image
Lights of ships moved in the fairway-a great stir of lights going up and going down. And farther west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars.
Joseph Conrad
Image
Beyond the fence the forest stood up spectrally in the moonlight, and through the dim stir, through the faint sounds of that lamentable courtyard, the silence of the land went home to one's very heart - its mystery, its greatness, the amazing reality of its concealed life.
Joseph Conrad
Image
The question is not how to get cured, but how to live.
Joseph Conrad
Image
Let them think what they liked, but I didn't mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank -- but that's not the same thing.
Joseph Conrad
Image
I let him run on, this papier-maché Mephistopheles, and it seemed to me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and would find nothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe.
Joseph Conrad
Image
We couldn't understand because we were too far... and could not remember because we were traveling in the night of first ages, those ages that had gone, leaving hardly a sign... and no memories.
Joseph Conrad