717 Quotes by Graham Greene

It was as though our love were a small creature caught in a trap and bleeding to death: I had to shut my eyes and wring its neck.

Ordinary life goes on--that has saved many a man's reason.

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.

Se vorbește despre milă cu mare ușurință, ca și despre iubire, când de fapt este o pasiune pustiitoare și ambiguă pe care atât de puțini sunt capabili s-o resimtă.

Mila ardea în inima lui mocnit ca putregaiul. Nu va scăpa de ea nicicând. Știa din experiență cum se stinge pasiunea și cum dispare dragostea, dar mila rămânea întotdeauna. Nimic nu micșora vreodată mila. Împrejurările vieții o alimentau.

Even though my reason wanted the state of death, I was afraid like a virgin of the act. I would have liked death to come with due warning, so that I could prepare myself. For what? I didn't know, nor how, except by taking a look around at the little I would be leaving.

The first day one watches to see whether a routine will emerge: it is a routine that makes home.

His question reminded me of how easy he had been to deceive, so easy that he seemed to me almost a conniver at his wife's unfaithfulness, as the man who leaves loose banknotes in a hotel bedroom connives at theft, and I hated him for the very quality which had once helped my love.

He opened the book at random, or so he believed, but a book is like a sandy path which keeps the indent of footsteps.