For there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence.
Joseph ConradA historian may be an artist too, and a novelist is a historian, the preserver, the keeper, the expounder, of human experience.
Joseph ConradItโs extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps itโs just as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome.
Joseph ConradIn 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.
Joseph ConradFor a bag of pepper, they could cut each other's throats without hesitation, and would forswear their souls... The bizarre obstinacy of that desire made them defy death in a thousand shapes; the unknown seas, the loathsome diseases; wounds, captivity, hunger, pestilence and despair. It made them great! By heavens! It made them heroic; and it made them pathetic, too, in their craving for trade with the inflexible death levying its toll on young and old
Joseph Conrad