717 Quotes by Graham Greene

What do we ever get nowadays from reading to equal the excitement and the revelation in those first fourteen years?

In a common situation, I suppose we all behave much alike and use the same words.

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.

I’m sick with life, I’m rotten with health.

I had to touch you with my hands, I had to taste you with my tongue; one can’t love and do nothing.

He had stylized himself – life was easier that way. He had chosen a physical mould just as writer chooses a technical form.

He looked with horror round the room: nobody could say he hadn’t done right to get away from this, to commit any crime... When the man opened his mouth he heard his father speaking, that figure in the corner was his mother: he bargained for his sister and felt no desire... He turned to Rose, ‘I’m off,’ and felt the faintest tinge of pity for goodness which couldn’t murder to escape.

The hands of the guilty don’t necessarily tremble; only in stories does a dropped glass betray agitation. Tension is more often shown in the studied action.

But she wouldn’t pray, she took what comfort and credit she could for not praying; it wasn’t that one disbelieved in prayer; one never lost all one’s belief in magic. It was that she preferred to plan, it was fairer, it wasn’t loading the dice.