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Graham Greene

Graham Greene Quotes

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Famous Graham Greene Quotes

“Fun... human nature... does no one any harm... Regular as clockwork the old excuses came back into the alert, sad and dissatisfied brain--nothing ever matched the deep excitement of the regular desire. Men always failed you when it came to the act. She might just as well have been to the pictures.”

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Book:The Collected Edition: Brighton rock
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“Our heroes are simple: they are brave, they tell the truth, they are good swordsmen and they are never in the long run really defeated. That is why no later books satisfy us like those which were read to us in childhood - for those promised a world of great simplicity of which we knew the rules, but the later books are complicated and contradictory with experience; they are formed out of our own disappointing memories.”

WorldLongBookRunningMemoriesSimpleChildhoodHeroBraveSimplicityComplicatedTelling The TruthLong RunsDefeatedContradictoryDisappointingSwordsman
Author:Graham Greene
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“One never knows enough about characters in real life to put them into novels. One gets started and then, suddenly, one can not remember what toothpaste they use; what are their views on interior decoration, and one is stuck utterly. No, major characters emerge; minor ones may be photographed.”

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Book:Conversations with Graham Greene
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“I write about situations that are common, universal might be more correct, in which my characters are involved and from which only faith can redeem them, though often the actual manner of the redemption is not immediately clear. They sin, but there is no limit to God's mercy and because this is important, there is a difference between not confessing in fact, and the complacent and the pious may not realize it.”

WritingMayImportantCharacterFactsMightRealizingDifferencesSinCommonSituationClearInvolvedLimitsMercyUniversalRedemptionPiousComplacentConfessing
Book:Conversations with Graham Greene
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“Nobody here could ever talk about a heaven on earth. Heaven remained rigidly in its proper place on the other side of death, and on this side flourished the injustices, the cruelties, the meanness that elsewhere people so cleverly hushed up. Here you could love human beings nearly as God loved them, knowing the worst: you didn't love a pose, a pretty dress, a sentiment artfully assumed.”

PeopleHumansEarthHeavenSidesHuman BeingsKnowingWorstDressesInjusticeCrueltyGod LoveSentimentsElsewhereMeannessHeaven On Earth
Author:Graham Greene
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“Tea at college was served on long tables with an urn at the end of each. Long baguettes of bread, three to a table, were set out with meagre portions of butter and jam; the china was coarse to withstand the schoolboy-clutch and the tea strong. At the Hôtel de Paris I was astonished at the fragility of the cups, the silver teapot, the little triangular savoury sandwiches, the éclairs stuffed with cream.”

LittlesLongEndsThreeStrongFoodCollegeTablesCookingChinaBreadCupsTeaParisSilverCulinaryPortionsCreamSandwichesJamFragilityClutchCoarseTeapotsBaguettes
Book:The Comedians
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