717 Quotes by Graham Greene

Ordinary life goes on – that has saved many a man’s reason.

One of the few remarks of age which I noticed in my aunt was her readiness to abandon one anecdote while it was yet unfinished for another.

I am interested in the blueness of the cheese.

Human love can be only a pale reflection of the emotion that God must feel for what He has created.

What an unbearable creature he must have been in those days – and yet in those days he had been comparatively innocent. That was another mystery: it sometimes seemed to him that venial sins – impatience, an unimportant lie, pride, a neglected opportunity – cut you off from grace more completely than the worst sins of all. Then, in his innocence, he had felt no love for anyone; now in his corruption he had learnt.

He gave her a bright fake smile; so much of life was a putting off of unhappiness for another time. Nothing was ever lost by delay. He had a dim idea that perhaps if one delayed long enough, things were taken out of one’s hands altogether by death.

Childhood is the writer’s bank balance.

I remember I dreamed a lot of Sarah in those obscure days or weeks. Sometimes I would wake with a sense of pain, sometimes with pleasure. If a woman is in one’s thoughts all day, one should not have to dream of her at night.

Her face looked ugly in the attempt to avoid tears; it was an ugliness which bound him to her more than any beauty could have done. It isn’t being happy together, he thought as though it were a fresh discovery, that makes one love – it’s being unhappy together.