717 Quotes by Graham Greene

One has no talent. I have no talent. It’s just a question of working, of being willing to put in the time.

It was like hate on a deathbed.

I wished I had been able to make her look that way, but it is the destiny of a lover to watch unhappiness hardening like a cast around his mistress.

I hate your reasons. I don’t want reasons. If you see somebody in pain, people like you reason and reason. You say – pain is a good thing, perhaps he’ll be better for it one day. I want to let my heart speak... Yes. At the end of a gun.

I shut my eyes and she was again the same as she used to be: she was the hiss of steam, the clink of a cup, she was a certain hour of the night and the promise of rest.

We mustn’t complain too much of being comedians – it’s an honorable profession. If only we could be good ones the world might gain at least a sense of style. We have failed – that’s all. We are bad comedians, we aren’t bad men.

Man made God in his own image, so it’s natural he should love him. You know those distorting mirrors at fairs. Man’s made a beautifying mirror too in which he sees himself lovely and powerful and just and wise. It’s his idea of himself. He recognizes himself easier than in the distorting mirror which only makes him laugh, but how he loves himself in the other.

One can’t always be wise, can one, in a world like this?

She always harboured my criticism: it was only praise that slid from her like the snow.