Graham Greene: Trending quotes

“When we are not sure, we are alive.”

“We forget very easily what gives us pain.”

“Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either extreme egotism, selfishness, evil -- or else an absolute ignorance.”

“Most things disappoint till you look deeper.”

“We can love with our minds, but can we love only with our minds? Love extends itself all the time, so that we can love even with our senseless nails: we love even with our clothes, so that a sleeve can feel a sleeve.”

“Oh well, perhaps when you're my age you'll know the heart is an untrustworthy beast. The mind too, but it doesn't talk about love.”

“There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in… We should be thankful we cannot see the horrors and degradations lying around our childhood, in cupboards and bookshelves, everywhere.”

“Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.”

“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”

“Suffering is not increased by numbers. One body can contain all the suffering the world can feel.”

“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human condition.”

“He’ll always be innocent, you can’t blame the innocent, they are always guiltless. All you can do is control them or eliminate them. Innocence is a kind of insanity.”

“I've caught belief like a disease. I've fallen into belief like I fell in love.”

“Our worst enemies here are not the ignorant and the simple, however cruel; our worst enemies are the intelligent and corrupt.”

“So it always is: when you escape to a desert the silence shouts in your ear.”

“Sooner or later…one has to take sides – if one is to remain human.”

“But I'm a bad priest, you see. I know--from experience--how much beauty Satan carried down with him when he fell. Nobody ever said the fallen angels were the ugly ones. Oh, no, they were just as quick and light and…”

“Pain is easy to write. In pain we're all happily individual. But what can one write about happiness?”

“I hate you, God. I hate you as though you actually exist.”