Henry Graham Greene Quotes & Sayings

Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Albert Camus, Graham Greene - they influenced my life to a profound extent. — Paul Theroux

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. — Graham Greene

How can I make a stranger see her as she stopped in the hall at the foot of the stairs and turned to us? I have never been able to describe even my fictitious characters except by their actions. It has always seemed to me that in a novel the reader should be allowed to imagine a character in any way he chooses: I do not want to supply him with ready-made illustrations. Now I am betrayed by my own technique, for I do not want any other woman substituted for Sarah, I want the reader to see the one broad forehead and bold mouth, the conformation of the skull, but all I can convey is an indeterminate figure turning in the dripping mackintosh, saying, 'Yes, Henry?' and then 'You? — Graham Greene

Oh, it's not done,' I said, 'but neither is adultery or theft or running away from the enemy's fire. The not done things are done every day, Henry. It's part of modern life. I've done most of them myself. — Graham Greene

I didn't know it buy You moved in the pain. I said, let him be alive,' not believing in You, and my disbelief made no difference to You. You took it into Your love and accepted it like an offering, and tonight the rain soaked through my coat and my clothes into my skin, and I shivered with the cold, and it was for the first time as though I nearly loved You. I walked under Your windows in the rain and I wanted to wait under the all night only to show that after all I might learn to love and I wasn't afraid of the desert any longer because You were there. I came back into the house and there was Maurice with Henry. It was the second time You had given him back: the first time I had hated you for it and You'd taken my hate like You'd taken my disbelief into Your love, keeping them to show me later, so that we could both laugh ... — Graham Greene

There I go again. I want. I don't want. If I could love You, I could love Henry. God was made man. He was Henry with his astigmatism, Richard with his spots, not only Maurice. If I could love a leper's sores, couldn't I love the boringness of Henry? But I'd turn from the leper if he were here, I suppose, as I shut myself away from Henry. I want the dramatic always. I imagine I'm ready for the pain of your nails ... Dear God, I'm no use. I'm still the same bitch and fake. Clear me out of the way. — Graham Greene