Graham Greene Quotes

Except for the sound of the rain, on the road, on the roofs, on the umbrella, there was absolute silence: only the dying moan of the sirens continued for a moment or two to vibrate within the ear. It seemed to Scobie later that this was the ultimate border he had reached in happiness: being in darkness, alone, with the rain falling, without love or pity.

~ Graham Greene

He wasn't a patient. I expect someone cured him. You cure a lot of people in this country, don't you, with bullets?

~ Graham Greene

What have we all got to expect that we allow ourselves to be so lined with disappointment?

~ Graham Greene

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

one gets so hopelessly tired of deception.

~ Graham Greene

That was my first instinct -- to protect him. It never occurred to me that there was a greater need to protect myself. Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.

~ Graham Greene

Why do we have this desire to tease the innocent? Is it envy?

~ Graham Greene

Intimacy with one person could do this-empty the world of friendships, give a distaste for women's kisses and their bright chatter, make the ordinary world a little unreal and very uninteresting.

~ Graham Greene

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.

~ Graham Greene

One can't love humanity. One can only love people.

~ Graham Greene

Pity is cruel. Pity destroys.

~ Graham Greene

It is always of interest to know what strikes another human being as remarkable.

~ Graham Greene

The old man in the beard he felt convinced was wrong. He was too busy saving his own soul. Wasn't it better to take part even in the crimes of people you loved, if it was necessary hate as they did, and if that were the end of everything suffer damnation with them rather than be saved alone?

~ Graham Greene

When we are not sure we are alive.

~ Graham Greene

Communists have committed great crimes but at least they have not stood aside like an established society and been indifferent. I would rather have blood on my hands than water like Pilate.

~ Graham Greene

Despair is the price one pays for setting himself an impossible aim.

~ Graham Greene

Despair is the price one pays for setting himself an impossible aim.

~ Graham Greene

No human being can really understand another and no one can arrange another's happiness.

~ Graham Greene

Success is more dangerous than failure, the ripples break over a wider coastline.

~ Graham Greene

Failure too is a form of death.

~ Graham Greene

Human nature is not black and white but black and grey.

~ Graham Greene

We are all of us resigned to death: it's life we aren't resigned to.

~ Graham Greene

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

~ Graham Greene

No human being can really understand another, and no one can arrange another's happiness.

~ Graham Greene

The truth has never been of any real value to any human being - it is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.

~ Graham Greene

Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully.

~ Graham Greene

A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.

~ Graham Greene

If you have abandoned one faith, do not abandon all faith. There is always an alternative to the faith we lose. Or is it the same faith under another mask?

~ Graham Greene

It is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.

~ Graham Greene

In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace - and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

~ Graham Greene

In human relationships, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.

~ Graham Greene

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

~ Graham Greene