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Graham Greene

Graham Greene Quotes

Writer

Graham Greene was a renowned British writer born on October 2, 1904. His works are characterized by deep insight and unique narrative techniques, and he is hailed as one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century. Greene's writing spans a variety of themes, including spy novels, religious novels, and noir novels.

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All Men Ifs Love Humans Writing World Hate Literature People Ends God Knows Thinking Long Pain Hands Human Beings Believe Lying Sometimes

Famous Graham Greene Quotes

“What are we doing to each other? Because I know that I am doing to him exactly what he is doing to me. We are sometimes so happy, and never in our lives have we known more unhappiness.”

Love Philosophy Literature Romantic

Book:The End of the Affair

Source: The End of the Affair

“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”

Literature Readings

Book:Travels With My Aunt

Source: Travels With My Aunt

“The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see - every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.”

People Inspiration Literature Party Listening Advantage Boring Spy Observing Scrap

Author:Graham Greene

“My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. Ball-point pens are only good for filling out forms on a plane.”

Doe Two Hands Form Courses Literature Brain Balls Fingers Connected Planes Pens Fountain Filling Typewriters Aeroplanes Fountain Pens Ballpoint Pens

Author:Graham Greene

“Against the beautiful and the clever and the successful, one can wage a pitiless war, but not against the unattractive: then the millstone weighs on the breast.”

War Beautiful Literature Successful Clever Breasts Ugliness Unattractive

Author:Graham Greene

“Innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.”

World Literature Lost Harm Wander Dumb Innocence Bells Wiser Leper Prudishness

Author:Graham Greene

“A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.”

Writing Trying Reason Reality Literature Fiction Distance Journalism Journalist Novelists Petty Fake People

Book:Mornings in the dark: the Graham Greene film reader

Source: Mornings in the dark: the Graham Greene film reader

“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.”

World Would Be Literature Lost Protection Harm Wander Dumb Innocence Bells Wiser Leper Prudishness

Author:Graham Greene

“Reality in our century is not something to be faced.”

Reality Literature Century

Book:The Collected Edition: Our man in Havana

Source: The Collected Edition: Our man in Havana

“The economy of a novelist is a little like that of a careful housewife who is unwilling to throw away anything that might perhaps serve its turn.”

Writing Littles Might Turns Literature Economy Careful Novelists Unwilling Housewife

Book:In Search of a Character: Two African Journals

Source: In Search of a Character: Two African Journals

“Thrillers are like life, more like life than you are.”

Literature Thrillers

Book:The Collected Edition: The ministry of fear

Source: The Collected Edition: The ministry of fear

“Unhappiness in a child accumulates because he sees no end to the dark tunnel. The thirteen weeks of a term might just as well be thirteen years.”

Years Wells Children Ends Might Literature Term Dark Week Unhappiness Tunnels Thirteen Light At The End Of The Tunnel End Of The Tunnel

Author:Graham Greene

“People talk about the courage of condemned men walking to the place of execution: sometimes it needs as much courage to walk with any kind of bearing towards another person's habitual misery.”

People Men Needs Kind Persons Sometimes Literature Walks Walking Misery Execution Habitual Misers

Book:The Portable Graham Greene

Source: The Portable Graham Greene

“If you have abandoned one faith, do not abandon all faith. There is always an alternative to the faith we lose. Or is it the same faith under another mask?”

Ifs Literature Loses Alternatives Mask Abandon Abandoned

Book:The Comedians

Source: The Comedians

“They are always saying God loves us. If thats love Id rather have a bit of kindness.”

Ifs Literature Bits Kindness God Love God Loves Us

Book:The Captain and the Enemy

Source: The Captain and the Enemy

“He felt the loyalty we feel to unhappiness - the sense that is where we really belong.”

Feels Happiness Literature Felt Loyalty Unhappiness

Book:The Portable Graham Greene

Source: The Portable Graham Greene

“I have often noticed that a bribe has that effect - it changes a relation. The man who offers a bribe gives away a little of his own importance; the bribe once accepted, he becomes the inferior, like a man who has paid for a woman.”

Men Giving Littles Literature Effects He Man Offers Importance Relation Paid Corruption Accepted Inferiors Bribe

Book:The Comedians

Source: The Comedians

“A murderer is regarded by the conventional world as something almost monstrous, but a murderer to himself is only an ordinary man. It is only if the murderer is a good man that he can be regarded as monstrous.”

Ifs Men World Literature Ordinary Murder Good Man Conventional Murderer Monstrous Ordinary Man

Author:Graham Greene

“The world doesn't make any heroes anymore.”

World Literature Hero

Author:Graham Greene

About the Author

Born: October 2, 1904
Died: April 3, 1991
Known for: Writer
Quotes: 405

Related Topics

Men Ifs Love Humans Writing World Hate Literature People Ends God Knows Thinking Long Pain Hands Human Beings Believe Lying Sometimes

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

The End of the AffairRelated source material

The Power and the GloryRelated source material

The Heart of The MatterRelated source material

The Quiet AmericanRelated source material

Travels With My AuntRelated source material

The ComediansRelated source material

The Collected Edition: The quiet AmericanRelated source material

Conversations with Graham GreeneRelated source material

The Portable Graham GreeneRelated source material

The Human FactorRelated source material

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