Quote 1
"'To the very end,' I said, shakily. 'I heard his very last words. . . .' I stopped in a fright.
'Repeat them,' she murmured in a heart-broken tone. 'I want–I want–something – something – to – to live with.'
I was on the point of crying at her, 'Don't you hear them?' The dusk was repeating them in a persistent whisper all around us, in a whisper that seemed to swell menacingly like the first whisper of a rising wind. 'The horror! The horror!'" (3.80-82)
That Kurtz’s last words drum repeatedly in Marlow’s mind reinforces the idea that words last forever.
Quote 2
"Kurtz discoursed. A voice! a voice! It rang deep to the very last. It survived his strength to hide in the magnificent folds of eloquence the barren darkness of his heart. Oh, he struggled! he struggled! The wastes of his weary brain were haunted by shadowy images now – images of wealth and fame revolving obsequiously round his unextinguishable gift of noble and lofty expression. My Intended, my station, my career, my ideas – these were the subjects for the occasional utterances of elevated sentiments." (3.37)
Even when deprived of his potential kingdom, Kurtz speaks with moving eloquence. But now Marlow realizes just how "barren" and empty his words are. His words are now just hollow reflections of his dreams "of wealth and fame" and his favorite adjective, "my," is meaningless. Kurtz owns nothing now that he has been removed from the interior.
Quote 3
"There were no practical hints to interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of note at the foot on the last page, scrawled evidently much later, in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as the exposition of a method. It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying, like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: ‘Exterminate all the brutes!’" (2.29)
Kurtz’s idealistic and moving words change suddenly with this postscriptum. His condemnatory tone here blazes "like a flash of lightning in a serene sky" and sends a message far different from the rest of his report.
Quote 4
[Kurtz]: "'The horror! The horror!'" (3.43)
Kurtz’s final judgment on his life, his actions, mankind in general, imperialism, or his fate is one of deep and profound fear.
Quote 5
"It was more than a year since his death, more than a year since the news came; she [the Intended] seemed as though she would remember and mourn forever […]. But while we were still shaking hands, such a look of awful desolation came upon her face that I perceived she was one of those creatures that are not the playthings of Time. For her he had died only yesterday. And, by Jove! the impression was so powerful that for me, too, he seemed to have died only yesterday – nay, this very minute. I saw her and him in the same instant of time – his death and her sorrow – I saw her sorrow in the very moment of his death. Do you understand? I saw them together – I heard them together." (3.53)
Kurtz’s Intended seems as if she is not susceptible to the ravages nor the comforts of passing time. She stretches the time of mourning into eternity.
Quote 6
"You should have heard him say, 'My ivory.' Oh, yes, I heard him. 'My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my - ' everything belonged to him. It made me hold my breath in expectation of hearing the wilderness burst into a prodigious peal of laughter that would shake the fixed stars in their places. Everything belonged to him - but that was a trifle. The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own. That was the reflection that made you creepy all over. It was impossible — it was not good for one either - trying to imagine. He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land - I mean literally." (2.29)
Kurtz, in his madness, is being taken over by the "powers of darkness." He no longer belongs to himself, but to the evil wilderness because he has accepted worship from the native Africans, who are described as "devils," and willingly taking his place among them. In essence, Marlow claims, Kurtz has accepted a seat in hell and thus belongs to the darkness.
Quote 7
[Kurtz]: "'I was on the threshold of great things,' he pleaded, in a voice of longing, with a wistfulness of tone that made my blood run cold. 'And now for this stupid scoundrel—'" (3.29)
Kurtz thinks himself a force of good while the manager is a "stupid scoundrel," as a force of evil who thwarts his glorious plans. Well, we don't like the manager or anything, but we're pretty sure it's not that simple.
Quote 8
"At this moment I heard Kurtz's deep voice behind the curtain: 'Save me!—save the ivory, you mean. Don't tell me. Save me!'" (3.18)
Kurtz is so debauched by greed that he assumes everyone feels the same way. He believes that the manager does not actually want to save him, but to save the ivory in order to look good to the Company. He is, of course, correct.
Quote 9
[Kurtz]: "'Sick! Sick! Not so sick as you would like to believe. Never mind. I'll carry my ideas out yet—I will return. I'll show you what can be done. You with your little peddling notions - you are interfering with me. I will return.'" (3.18)
Kurtz—apparently ignoring the fact that he is literally dying—still thinks he's going to win. He considers not only that the manager himself is less powerful than he, but that the manager's ideas are merely "little peddling notions" beside his own great ambitions.
Quote 10
"He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision—he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath:
'The horror! The horror!'" (3.42-43)
Wow. This is not what we want to be whispering on our deathbed. We don't exactly know what Kurtz is seeing, but we know it's not good.
Quote 11
"One evening coming in with a candle I was startled to hear him [Kurtz] say a little tremulously, 'I am lying here in the dark waiting for death.' The light was within a foot of his eyes. I forced myself to murmur, 'Oh, nonsense!' and stood over him as if transfixed." (3.41)
We're pretty sure that this blindness is metaphoric: Kurtz is blinded by the darkness and evil of his soul.
Quote 12
"[…] I heard him mutter, 'Live rightly, die, die…' I listened. There was nothing more. Was he rehearsing some speech in his sleep, or was it a fragment of a phrase from some newspaper article? He had been writing for the papers and meant to do so against, 'for the furthering of my ideas. It's a duty.'" (3.39)
Kurtz just gets crazier and crazier as he dies, sputtering random words like a mid-grade hip-hop artist.