Quratulain’s Reviews > The Portable Conrad > Status Update

“I don’t like work. I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. I don’t like work—no man does— but I like what is in the work— the chance to find yourself. Your own reality—what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show and never can tell what is really means.”

“Because triumphant health in the general rout of constitutions is a kind of power in itself…Such a suspicion made one pause— for out there there were no external checks.”

“A neglected gap was all the gate it had and the first glance at the place was enough to let you see the flabby devil was running that show.”

“I respected his collars, his vast cuffs, his brushed hair….in the great demoralization of the land he kept up his appearance. That’s backbone. His starched collars and got-up shirt-fronts were achievements of character.

“…I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly.”

“They were building a railway. The Cliff was not in the way or anything; but this objectless blasting was all the work going on.”

“Nowhere did we stop long enough to get a particularised impression, but the general sense of vague and oppressive wonder grew upon me. It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares.”

“The idleness of a passenger, my isolation amongst all these men with whom I had no point of contact…seemed to keep me away from the truth of things, within the toil of a mournful and senseless delusion.”

“It’s queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be…if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over.”

“Avoid irritation more than exposure to the sun.”