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

At the end of what is called the 'sexual life' the only love which has lasted is the love which has everything every disappointment every failure and every betrayal which has accepted even the sad fact that in the end there is no desire so deep as the simple desire for companionship.

— Graham Greene

A writer's knowledge of himself, realistic and unromantic, is like a store of energy on which he must draw for a lifetime: one volt of it properly directed will bring a character to life.

— Graham Greene

Beauty is like success: we can't love it for long.

— Graham Greene

But if love had to die, I wanted it to die quickly. It was as though our love was a small creature caught in a trap and bleeding to death: I had to shut my eyes and wring its neck.

— Graham Greene

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

But it is impossible to go through life without trust; that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.

— Graham Greene

But she wouldn't pray, she took what comfort and credit she could for not praying; it wasn't that one disbelieved in prayer; one never lost all one's belief in magic. It was that she preferred to plan, it was fairer, it wasn't loading the dice.

— Graham Greene

But you do believe, don’t you," Rose implored him, "you think it’s true?" "Of course it’s true," the Boy said. "What else could there be?" he went scornfully on. "Why," he said, "it’s the only thing that fits. These atheists, they don’t know anything. Of course there’s Hell. Flames and damnation," he said with his eyes on the dark shifting water and the lightning and the lamps going out above the black struts of the Palace Pier, "torments." "And Heaven too," Rose said with anxiety, while the rain fell interminably on. "Oh, maybe," the Boy said, "maybe.

— Graham Greene

Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully.

— Graham Greene