Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.

The vision seemed to enter the house with me-the stretcher, the phantom-bearers, the wild crowd of obedient worshippers, the gloom of the forests, the glitter of the reach between the murky bends, the beat of the drum, regular and muffled like the beating of a heart-the heart of a conquering darkness.

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

Being a lady is a frightfully troublesome assignment, since it comprises mainly in managing men.

Conrad placed on the title page an epigraph taken from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene: "Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas, Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please" This also became Conrad's epitaph.

It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core.

Everything belonged to him--but that was a trifle. The thing to know was what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own.