Quotes from Graham Greene

Only in childhood do books have any deep influence on our lives. In later life, we admire, we are entertained, we may modify some views we already hold, but we are more likely to find in books merely a confirmation of what is in our minds already.

I wrote what I saw. I took no action—even an opinion is a kind of action.

What an unbearable creature he must have been in those days—and yet in those days he had been comparatively innocent. That was another mystery: it sometimes seemed to him that venial sins—impatience, an unimportant lie, pride, a neglected opportunity—cut you off from grace more completely than the worst sins of all. Then, in his innocence, he had felt no love for anyone; now in his corruption he had learnt...

It was typical of Dr Hasselbacher that after fifteen years of friendship he still used the prefix Mr—friendship proceeded with the slowness and assurance of a careful diagnosis. On Wormold's death-bed, when Dr Hasselbacher came to feel his failing pulse, he would perhaps become Jim.

to an author there is a certain romance when stray copies of his work turn up in far, poor or abandoned places of the world.

ojos de viejo al que se le han muerto los sentimientos».

There are small bits of useless knowledge which stick to one's brain like barnacles to

Through the cold night air the Assistant Commissioner imagined for a moment that between the verses he could hear the footsteps of the warders pacing in the tower.

Das Kind zog an der Hand seines Vaters, und er konnte erkennen, wie die Lippen jene zwei Silben formten, die wie der Refrain einer grausigen Ballade klagen: Papa, Papa.

Shadows fell like earth from a tilted spade.

General Thé is not a very controlled character.' 'And bombs aren't for boys from Boston. Who is Pyle's chief, Heng?' 'I have the impression that Mr Pyle is very much his own master.' 'What is he? O.S.S.?' 'The initial letters are not very important. I think now they are different.

From behind he looked younger than he was in his dark thin ready-made suit a little too big for him at the hips, but when you met him face to face he looked older, the slatey eyes were touched with the annihilating eternity from which he had come and to which he went.

I drive through the streets and I care not a damn, The people they stare, and they ask who I am; And if I should chance to run over a cad, I can pay for the damage if ever so bad. So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho! So pleasant it is to have money.

Africa will always be the Africa of the Victorian atlas, the blank unexplored continent the shape of the human heart.

Sometimes I would wake with a sense of pain, sometimes with pleasure. If a woman is in one's thoughts all day, one should not have to dream of her at night.

Phuong had kept us a table at the edge of the dance-floor and the orchestra was playing some tune which had been popular in Paris five years ago. Two Vietnamese couples were dancing, small, neat, aloof, with an air of civilization we couldn't match. (I recognized one, an accountant from the Banque de

Execution shed

Car broken down. Everything very quiet. Hope to be back Thursday.' A picture-postcard is a symptom of loneliness.

He felt the loyalty we feel to unhappiness - the sense that it is where we really belong.

Let us weigh the gain and loss,"' he quoted, '"in wagering that God is, let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose you lose nothing.

Morality comes with the sad wisdom of age, when the sense of curiosity has withered.

annihilation, forgiveness, punishment or peace.

It is only if the murderer is a good man that he can be regarded as monstrous.

Why doesn't hatred kill desire?