I couldn't have felt more of lonely desolation somehow, had I been robbed of a belief or had missed my destiny in life... - Joseph Conrad

I saw him open his mouth wide. . . as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the men before him.

The more I write the less substance do I see in my work, … It is tolerably awful. And I face it, I face it but the fright is growing on me. My fortitude is shaken by the view of the monster. It does not move; its eyes are baleful; it is as still as death itself — and it will devour me. Its stare has eaten into my soul already deep, deep.

The use of reason is to justify the obscure desires that move our conduct, impulses, passions, prejudices and follies, and also our fears.