Quotes and anectdotes from the wise to the foolish, and the courageous to the drunk

Joseph Conrad Novelist

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: United Kingdom
  • Born: Dec 3, 1857
  • Died: Aug 3, 1924

Joseph Conrad was a Polish author who wrote in English after settling in England. He was granted British nationality in 1886, but always considered himself a Pole. Conrad is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in English, though he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties. He wrote stories and novels, often with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of an indifferent universe. He was a master prose stylist who brought a distinctly non-English sensibility into English literature.

While some of his works have a strain of Romanticism, his works are viewed as modernist literature. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced many authors, including D. H. Lawrence, T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Gerald Basil Edwards, Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell, Graham Greene, Malcolm Lowry, William Golding, William S. Burroughs, Joseph Heller, Italo Calvino, Gabriel García Márquez, J. G. Ballard, Chinua Achebe, John le Carré, V. S. Naipaul, Philip Roth, Hunter S. Thompson, J. M. Coetzee, Stephen Donaldson and Salman Rushdie.

I take it that what all men are really after is some form or perhaps only some formula of peace. peace

Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love - and to put its trust in life. hope, love & trust

All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind. legal

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. alone & men

Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line. art

It is a maudlin and indecent verity that comes out through the strength of wine. strength

The last thing a woman will consent to discover in a man whom she loves, or on whom she simply depends, is want of courage. courage

A caricature is putting the face of a joke on the body of a truth. truth

Going home must be like going to render an account. home

Perhaps life is just that... a dream and a fear. dreams & fear

A man's real life is that accorded to him in the thoughts of other men by reason of respect or natural love. respect

Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men. men & women

How does one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot a specter through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by its spectral throat? fear

As to honor - you know - it's a very fine mediaeval inheritance which women never got hold of. It wasn't theirs. women