717 Quotes by Graham Greene

He felt the sad relief of a man who realizes that there is one love at least that no longer hurts him.

For writers it is always said that the first twenty years of life contain the whole of experience – the rest is observation.

They haven’t left us much to believe in, have they? – even disbelief. I can’t believe in anything bigger than a home or vaguer than a human being.

The gulls swept over Dover. They sailed out like flakes of the fog, and tacked back towards the hidden town, while the siren mourned with them: other ships replied, a whole wake lifted up their voices – for whose death?

The possession of a body tonight seemed a very small thing-perhaps that day I had seen too many bodies which belonged to no one, not even to themselves. We were all expendable.

Doubt is the heart of the matter. Abolish all doubt, and what’s left is not faith, but absolute, heartless conviction. You’re certain that you possess the Truth – inevitably offered with an implied uppercase T – and this certainty quickly devolves into dogmatism and righteousness, by which I mean a demonstrative, overweening pride in being so very right, in short, the arrogance of fundamentalism.

There was no scene, no tears, just thought – the long private thought of somebody who has to alter a whole course of life.

The Church is in the world, it is part of the suffering in the world, and though Christ condemned the disciple who struck off the ear of the high priest’s servant, our hearts go out in sympathy to all who are moved to violence by the suffering of others. The Church condemns violence, but it condemns indifference more harshly. Violence can be the expression of love, indifference never. One is an imperfection of charity, the other the perfection of egoism.

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.