Quotes By Author: Graham Greene

“Freedom, I thought, comes only to the successful”

“Δε γίνεται να εμποδίσεις τη δημιουργία μαρτύρων. Το μόνο που μπορεί κανείς να κάνει είναι να κοιτάξει να περιορίσει τον αριθμό τους. Αν ήξερα κάποιους Χριστιανούς τον καιρό του Νέρωνα, θα προσπαθούσα να τους σώσω απ’ τα λιοντάρια, εξηγώντας τους πως είναι προτιμότερο να ζει κανείς με την πίστη του, παρά να πεθαίνει γι’ αυτήν.”

“But you do believe, don’t you,” Rose implored him, “you think it’s true?” “Of course it’s true,” the Boy said. “What else could there be?” he went scornfully on. “Why,” he said, “it’s the only thing that fits. These atheists, they don’t know nothing. Of course there’s Hell. Flames and damnation,” he said with his eyes on the dark shifting water and the lightning and the lamps going out above the black struts of the Palace Pier, “torments.” “And Heaven too,” Rose said with anxiety, while the rain fell interminably on. “Oh, maybe,” the Boy said, “maybe.”

“One forgets the dead quite quickly; one doesn’t wonder about the dead-what is he doing now, who is he with?”

“Nothing in life was as ugly as death.”

“I recognized my work for what it was–as unimportant a drug as cigarettes to get one through the weeks and years. If we are extinguished by death, as I still try to believe, what point is there in leaving some books behind any more than bottles, clothes, or cheap jewellry?”

“Life would go out in a ‘fraction of a second’ (that was the phrase), but all night he had been realizing that time depends on clocks and the passage of light. There were no clocks and the light wouldn’t change. Nobody really knew how long a second of pain could be. It might last a whole purgatory–or for ever.”

“We are all resigned to death: it’s life we aren’t resigned to.”

“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.”

“I know one thing you don’t. I know the difference between Right and Wrong. They didn’t teach you that at school.’Rose didn’t answer; the woman was quite right: the two words meant nothing to her. Their taste was extinguished by stronger foods–Good and Evil.”

“The woman had gone down on her knees and was shuffling slowly across the cruel ground towards the group of crosses: the dead baby rocked on her back. When she reached the tallest cross she unhooked the child and held the face against the wood and afterwards the loins: then she crossed herself, not as ordinary Catholics do, but in a curious and complicated pattern which included the nose and ears. Did she expect a miracle? And if she did, why should it not be granted her? the priest wondered. Faith, one was told, could move mountains, and here was faith–faith in the spittle that healed the blind man and the voice that raised the dead. The evening star was out: it hung low down over the edge of the plateau: it looked as if it was within reach: and a small hot wind stirred. The priest found himself watching the child for some movement. When none came, it was as if God had missed an opportunity. The woman sat down, and taking a lump of sugar from her bundle, began to eat, and the child lay quiet at the foot of the cross. Why, after all, should we expect God to punish the innocent with more life?”

“You must promise me. You can’t desire the end without desiring the means.’Ah, but one can, he thought, one can: one can desire the peace of victory without desiring the ravaged towns.”

“disappointment had to be postponed, hope kept alive as long as possible;”

“Knowledge was the great thing–not abstract knowledge in which Dr. Forester had been so rich, the theories which lead one enticingly on with their appearance of nobility, of transcendent virtue, but detailed, passionate, trivial human knowledge.”

“So much in writing depends on the superficiality of one’s days. One may be preoccupied with shopping and income tax returns and chance conversations, but the stream of the unconscious continues to flow undisturbed, solving problems, planning ahead: one sits down sterile and dispirited at the desk, and suddenly the words come as though from the air: the situations that seemed blocked in a hopeless impasse move forward: the work has been done while one slept or shopped or talked with friends.”