Quotes by

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. – Graham Greene

Cynicism is cheap — you can buy it at any Monoprix store — its built into all poor-quality goods. – Graham Greene

When we are not sure, we are alive. – Graham Greene

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. – Graham Greene

God created a number of possibilities in case some of his prototypes failed — that is the meaning of evolution. – Graham Greene

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. – Graham Greene

Sentimentality–thats what we call the sentiment we dont share. – Graham Greene

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. – Graham Greene

No human being can really understand another, and no one can arrange anothers happiness. – Graham Greene

We are all of us resigned to death: its life we arent resigned to. – 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 persons habitual misery. – 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. – 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. – Graham Greene

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. – Graham Greene

It is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself. – Graham Greene

In human relationships, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths. – Graham Greene

In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock! – Graham Greene

Human nature is not black and white but black and grey. – Graham Greene

Heresy is another word for freedom of thought. – 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, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation. – Graham Greene