Graham Greene Quotes - Page 9

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• Oh, she doesn't belong to anybody now,' he said, and suddenly I saw her for what she was - a piece of refuse waiting to be cleared away: if you needed a bit of hair you could take it, or trim her nails if nail trimmings had value to you. Like a saint's her bones could be divided up - if anybody required them. She was going to be burnt soon, so why shouldn't everybody have what he wanted first? What a fool I had been during three years to imagine that in any way I had possessed her. We are all possessed by nobody, not even by ourselves.

  Graham Greene

  Hair, Years, Waiting

  Graham Greene (1974). “The end of the affair”, Vintage

  6 Copy quote

• Thrillers are like life, more like life than you are.

  Graham Greene

  Literature, Thrillers

  Graham Greene (1973). “The Collected Edition: The ministry of fear”

  12 Copy quote

• Grief and disappointment are like hate: they make men ugly with self-pity and bitterness. And how selfish they make us too.

  Graham Greene

  Disappointment, Hate, Selfish

  Graham Greene (1974). “The end of the affair”, Vintage

  9 Copy quote

• If I had to choose between life in the Soviet Union and life in the U. S. A. , I would certainly choose the Soviet Union.

  Graham Greene

  Unions, Soviet Union, Soviet

  5 Copy quote

• Life would go out in a 'fraction of a second' (that was the phrase), but all night he had been realizing that time depends on clocks and the passage of light. There were no clocks and the light wouldn't change. Nobody really knew how long a second of pain could be. It might last a whole purgatory--or for ever.

  Graham Greene

  Pain, Night, Light

  Graham Greene (1971). “The Power and the Glory”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

  5 Copy quote

• Insecurity twists meanings and poisons trust. In a closely beleaguered city every sentry is a potential traitor.

  Graham Greene

  Trust, Cities, Insecurity

  Graham Greene (1974). “The end of the affair”, Vintage

  33 Copy quote

• Hope was an instinct only the reasoning human mind could kill. An animal never knew despair.

  Graham Greene

  Animal, Mind, Despair

  Graham Greene (1990). “The power and the glory”, Viking Pr

  8 Copy quote

• There are times when a lover longs to be also a father and a brother: he is jealous of the years he hasn't shared.

  Graham Greene

  Brother, Father, Jealous

  Graham Greene (1974). “The end of the affair”, Vintage

  10 Copy quote

• If only it were possible to love without injury – fidelity isn’t enough: I had been faithful to Anne and yet I had injured her. The hurt is in the act of possession: we are too small in mind and body to possess another person without pride or to be possessed without humiliation. In a way I was glad that my wife had struck out at me again – I had forgotten her pain for too long, and this was the only kind of recompense I could give her. Unfortunately the innocent are always involved in any conflict. Always, everywhere, there is some voice crying from a tower.

  Graham Greene

  Hurt, Pain, Philosophy

  Graham Greene (1973). “The Collected Edition: The quiet American”

  9 Copy quote

• Had Shakespeare listened to the news of Duncans death in a tavern or heard the knocking on his own bedroom door after he had finished the writing of Macbeth?

  Graham Greene

  Writing, Doors, Taverns

  Graham Greene (1971). “Triple pursuit: a Graham Greene omnibus”, Viking Pr

  6 Copy quote

• I'm tired and I'm sick to death of being without you.

  Graham Greene

  Tired, Sick, I'm Tired

  Graham Greene (1974). “The end of the affair”, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• I don't care a damn about men who are loyal to the people who pay them, to organizations...I don't think even my country means all that much. There are many countries in our blood, aren't there, but only one person. Would the world be in the mess it is if we were loyal to love and not to countries?

  Graham Greene

  Country, Mean, Men

  Graham Greene, Christopher Hitchens (2007). “Our man in Havana”, Penguin Classics

  6 Copy quote

• People talk about the courage of condemned men walking to the place of execution: sometimes it needs as much courage to walk with any kind of bearing towards another person's habitual misery.

  Graham Greene

  Men, People, Needs

  Graham Greene (1973). “The Portable Graham Greene”

  12 Copy quote

• Oh, I’m not a Berkeleian. I believe my back’s against this wall. I believe there’s a sten gun over there.

  Graham Greene

  Wall, Believe, Gun

  Graham Greene (1973). “The Collected Edition: The quiet American”

  7 Copy quote

• Oh well, perhaps when you're my age you'll know the heart is an untrustworthy beast.The mind too,but it doesn't talk about love.

  Graham Greene

  Heart, Mind, Age

  Graham Greene (1971). “The Power and the Glory”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

  8 Copy quote

• He gave her a bright fake smile; so much of life was a putting off of unhappiness for another time. Nothing was ever lost by delay. He had a dim idea that perhaps if one delayed long enough, things were taken out of one's hands altogether by death.

  Graham Greene

  Taken, Hands, Ideas

  'The Heart of the Matter' (1948) bk. 1, pt. 1, ch. 1

  11 Copy quote

• There was a tacit understanding between them that 'liquor helped'; growing more miserable with every glass one hoped for the moment of relief.

  Graham Greene

  Glasses, Alcohol, Understanding

  Graham Greene (1973). “The Portable Graham Greene”

  10 Copy quote

• Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought.

  Graham Greene

  Political, Doubt, Atheism

  "Freedom of Thought". Speech accepting the Jerusalem Prize, archive.spectator.co.uk. April 06, 1981.

  12 Copy quote

• People change,' she said 'Oh, no they don't. Look at me. I've never changed. It's like those sticks of rock: bite it all the way down, you'll still read Brighton. That's human nature.

  Graham Greene

  Rocks, People, Looks

  Graham Greene (1947). “Brighton rock”

  4 Copy quote

• I want men to admire me, but that's a trick you learn at school--a movement of the eyes, a tone of voice, a touch of the hand on the shoulder or the head. If they think you admire them, they will admire you because of your good taste, and when they admire you, you have an illusion for a moment that there's something to admire.

  Graham Greene

  School, Eye, Men

  Graham Greene (1974). “The end of the affair”, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

• Cynicism is cheap - you can buy it at any Monoprix store - it's built into all poor-quality goods.

  Graham Greene

  Quality Goods, Poor Quality, Cynicism

  GRAHAM GREENE (1966). “THE COMEDIANS”

  8 Copy quote

• Like the characters in Chekhov, they have no reserves -– you learn the most intimate secrets. You get an impression of a world peopled by eccentrics, of odd professions, almost incredible stupidities, and, to balance them, amazing endurances.

  Graham Greene

  Character, Stupidity, Secret

  Graham Greene (1982). “Another Mexico”, Viking Adult

  5 Copy quote

• I could have waited years, now that I knew the end of the story. I was cold and wet and very happy. I could even look with charity towards the altar and the figure dangling there. She loves us both, I thought, but if there is to be a conflict between an image and a man, I know who will win. I could put my hand on her thigh or my mouth on her breast; he was imprisoned behind the altar and couldn't move to plead his cause.

  Graham Greene

  Moving, Winning, Men

  5 Copy quote

• You must promise me. You can't desire the end without desiring the means.' Ah, but one can, he thought, one can: one can desire the peace of victory without desiring the ravaged towns.

  Graham Greene

  Mean, Promise, Victory

  Graham Greene (1951). “The heart of the matter”

  5 Copy quote

• I refused to believe that love could take any other form than mine: I measured love by the extent of my jealousy, and by that standard of course she could not love me at all.

  Graham Greene

  Believe, Form, Standards

  Graham Greene (1974). “The end of the affair”, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

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