Quotes by Graham Greene

“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 a human condition”

“It is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself”

“The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. Youre 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.”

“When we are not sure, we are alive.”

“Behind the complicated details of the world stand the simplicities: God is good, the grown-up man or woman knows the answer to every question, there is such a thing as truth, and justice is as measured and faultless as a clock. 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.”

“The truth has never been of any real value to any human being - it is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.”

“However great a mans fear of life, suicide remains the courageous act, the clear-headed act of a mathematician. The suicide has judged by the laws of chance -- so many odds against one that to live will be more miserable than to die. His sense of mathematics is greater than his sense of survival. But think how a sense of survival must clamor to be heard at the last moment, what excuses it must present of a totally unscientific nature.”

“Heresy is another word for freedom of thought.”

“Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim”

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

“In human relationships, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.”

“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?”

“We are all of us resigned to death: its life we arent resigned to.”

“Of course, before we know he is a saint, there will have to be miracles.”

“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.”

“A solitary laugh is often a laugh of superiority.”

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

“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.”

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

“We mustnt complain too much of being comedians -- its an honorable profession. If only we could be good ones the world might gain at least a sense of style. We have failed -- thats all. We are bad comedians, we arent bad men.”