But I'm a bad priest, you see. I know--from experience--how much beauty Satan carried down with him when he fell. Nobody ever said the fallen angels were the ugly ones. Oh, no, they were just as quick and light and . . . Graham Greene More Quotes by Graham Greene More Quotes From 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 fear depression love Our worst enemies here are not the ignorant and simple, however cruel; our worst enemies are the intelligent and corrupt Graham Greene worst-enemy intelligent simple Hate is a lack of imagination. Graham Greene hate imagination acceptance People who like quotes love meaningless generalizations Graham Greene generalization meaningless people There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in. Graham Greene spiritual inspirational love A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead. Graham Greene moments stories looks 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. Graham Greene pain identity happiness He was impregnably armored by his good intentions and his ignorance. Graham Greene good-intentions intention ignorance In human relationships, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths. Graham Greene thousand kindness lying When he was young, he had thought love had something to do with understanding, but with age he knew that no human being understood another. Love was the wish to understand, and presently with constant failure the wish died, and love died too perhaps or changed into this painful affection, loyalty, pity. Graham Greene loyalty understanding love Sweet are the thoughts that savor of content: the quiet mind is richer than a crown. Graham Greene great-inspirational mind sweet A single feat of daring can alter the whole conception of what is possible. Graham Greene daring conception whole ...every monologue sooner or later becomes a discussion. Graham Greene monologues discussion sooner-or-later 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. Graham Greene falling-in-love pain father Perhaps the sexual life is the great test. If we can survive it with charity to those we love and with affection to those we have betrayed, we needn't worry so much about the good and the bad in us. But jealousy, distrust, cruelty, revenge, recrimination ... then we fail. The wrong is in that failure even if we are the victims and not the executioners. Virtue is no excuse. Graham Greene tests revenge worry When we are not sure, we are alive. Graham Greene doubt inspirational life Hate is an automatic response to fear, for fear humiliates. Graham Greene response hate fear The hands of the guilty don't necessarily tremble; only in stories does a dropped glass betray agitation. Tension is more often shown in the studied action. Graham Greene glasses guilt hands Eternity is said not to be an extension of time but an absence of time, and sometimes it seemed to me that her abandonment touched that strange mathematical point of endlessness, a point with no width, occupying no space. Graham Greene strange space time 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 honesty truth kindness
