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Graham Greene

Graham Greene Quotes

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Famous Graham Greene Quotes

“Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim. It is, one is told, the unforgivable sin, but it is a sin the corrupt or evil man never practices. He always has hope. He never reaches the freezing-point of knowing absolute failure. Only the man of goodwill carries always in his heart this capacity for damnation.”

MenHeartEvilSinPayPracticeKnowingImpossibleDespairCapacityAbsolutesAimOneselfSettingSettingsCarrieGoodwillHaving HopeDamnationFreezingHope And DespairEvil ManUnforgivableUnforgivable Sin
Book:The Portable Graham Greene
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“If only it were possible to love without injury – fidelity isn’t enough: I had been faithful to Anne and yet I had injured her. The hurt is in the act of possession: we are too small in mind and body to possess another person without pride or to be possessed without humiliation. In a way I was glad that my wife had struck out at me again – I had forgotten her pain for too long, and this was the only kind of recompense I could give her. Unfortunately the innocent are always involved in any conflict. Always, everywhere, there is some voice crying from a tower.”

IfsWayGivingMindKindPersonsLongEnoughPhilosophyBodyPainVoiceHurtWifeCryPrideInvolvedConflictGuiltForgottenPossessionMy WifeGladInnocentFaithfulInjuryPossessedTowersHumiliationMind And BodyInjuredFidelityRecompense
Book:The Collected Edition: The quiet American
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“I wrote at the start that this was a record of hate, and walking there beside Henry towards the evening glass of beer, I found the one prayer that seemed to serve the winter mood: O God, You've done enough, You've robbed me of enough, I'm too tired and old to learn to love, leave me alone forever.”

DoneEnoughHateFoundPrayerForeverRecordsWalkingTiredWinterGlassesMoodEveningBeerLeaving MeMe AloneLeave Me AloneFound The One
Book:The End of the Affair
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“The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness. In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belongs to me and to no other. But happiness annihilates us: we lose our identity.”

MaySeemsPainHappinessFormIndividualLosesExistenceAwarenessIdentityMinesEasierMiseryUnhappinessNervesEgotismMonstrousWince
Book:The End of the Affair
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“Except for the sound of the rain, on the road, on the roofs, on the umbrella, there was absolute silence: only the dying moan of the sirens continued for a moment or two to vibrate within the ear. It seemed to Scobie later that this was the ultimate border he had reached in happiness: being in darkness, alone, with the rain falling, without love or pity.”

TwoMomentsFallSoundSilenceDarknessDyingRainUltimateEarsAbsolutesPityBordersRoofWithout LoveUmbrellaSirensVibrateRain Falling
Book:The Heart of The Matter
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“One's life is more formed, I sometimes think, by books than by human beings: it is out of books one learns about love and pain at second hand. Even if we have the happy chance to fall in love, it is because we have been conditioned by what we have read, and if I had never known love at all, perhaps it was because my father's library had not contained the right books.”

IfsThinkingHumansHas BeensBookSometimesHandsPainLife IsFallFatherChanceHuman BeingsKnownFalling In LoveLibrarySecond HandLove And Pain
Book:Travels With My Aunt
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“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.”

DoneTogetherFacesRelationshipTearsDiscoveryBoundsUglyUnhappyOne LoveUglinessBeing UnhappyHappy Together
Book:The Collected Edition: The ministry of fear
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“I have loved no part of the world like this and I have loved no women as I love you. You're my human Africa. I love your smell as I love these smells. I love your dark bush as I love the bush here, you change with the light as this place does, so that one all the time is loving something different and yet the same. I want to spill myself out into you as I want to die here.”

WorldWantHumansDoeDifferentLightDiesDarkLove YouSmellSpillsWanting To DieI Want To DieLoving Something
Author:Graham Greene
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