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All good novelists have bad memories.

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

Impossible Life Oneself Prison Trust
All good novelists have bad memories. What you remember comes out as journalism; what you forget goes into the compost of the imagination.
GRAHAM GREENE

Bad Forget Goodness Imagination Journalism Memories Yourself
There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.
GRAHAM GREENE

Childhood Future Moments Oneself
In our hearts there is a ruthless dictator, ready to contemplate the misery of a thousand strangers if it will ensure the happiness of the few we love.
GRAHAM GREENE

Heart Leadership Love Misery Stranger
A single feat of daring can alter the whole conception of what is possible.
GRAHAM GREENE

Conception Dare Possible
I aim to be content with what I produce. It’s an aim I never achieve, but I go over my work word by word, time and again, so as to be as little dissatisfied as possible.
GRAHAM GREENE

Achievement Content Goal Myself Possible Production Satisfaction Time Work
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

Challenge Lying Seek Success Truth
Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil – or else an absolute ignorance.
GRAHAM GREENE

Ego Evil Happiness Ignorance Man Myself Point
We are all of us resigned to death: it’s life we aren’t resigned to.
GRAHAM GREENE

Assignment Death Life
To be in love is to see yourself as someone else sees you, it is to be in love with the falsified and exalted image of yourself. In love we are incapable of honor – the courageous act is no more than playing a part to an audience of two.
GRAHAM GREENE

Act Audience Courage Image Love Respect
The next best thing to talking to her is talking about her.
GRAHAM GREENE

Love Relationship Talk
Media is just a word that has come to mean bad journalism.
GRAHAM GREENE

Bad Journalism Media Word
You needn’t be so scared. Love doesn’t end. Just because we don’t see each other.
GRAHAM GREENE

Distance End Love Relationship Scare See
Beauty is like success: we can’t love it for long.
GRAHAM GREENE

Beautiful Love One Liner
It was as though our love were a small creature caught in a trap and bleeding to death: I had to shut my eyes and wring its neck.
GRAHAM GREENE

Blood Creature Death Eyes Love
Despair is the price one pays for setting himself an impossible aim.
GRAHAM GREENE

Despair Goal Impossible Pay Price
Most things disappoint till you look deeper.
GRAHAM GREENE

Appearance Deep Disappoint
It is one of the strange discoveries a man can make that life, however you lead it, contains moments of exhilaration; there are always comparisons which can be made with worse times: even in danger and misery the pendulum swings.
GRAHAM GREENE

Dangerous Discover Leadership Life Man Misery Strange Time Worst
One has no talent. I have no talent. It’s just a question of working, of being willing to put in the time.
GRAHAM GREENE

Question Talent Time Willing Work
Hate is an automatic response to fear, for fear humiliates.
GRAHAM GREENE

Fear Hate Humiliation Response
You cannot conceive, nor can I, of the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.
GRAHAM GREENE

God Mercy Strange Yourself
We can love with our minds, but can we love only with our minds? Love extends itself all the time, so that we can love even with our senseless nails: we love even with our clothes, so that a sleeve can feel a sleeve.
GRAHAM GREENE

Clothes Love Mindset Ourselves Philosophy Time
Politics, war, marriage, crime, adultery. Everything that exists in the world has something to do with money.
GRAHAM GREENE

Adult Crime Marriage Money Politics
Sooner or later; one has to take sides. If one is to remain human.
GRAHAM GREENE

Human Oneself Side
Our worst enemies here are not the ignorant and simple, however cruel; our worst enemies are the intelligent and corrupt.
GRAHAM GREENE

Corruption Enemy Ignorance Simplicity Worst
It is a great danger for everyone when what is shocking changes.
GRAHAM GREENE

Change Dangerous Greatness
An autobiography is only ‘a sort of life’ – it may contain less errors of fact than a biography, but it is of necessity even more selective: it begins later and it ends prematurely.
GRAHAM GREENE

Beginning Errors Life Necessary Selection

All good novelists have bad memories.

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All good novelists have bad memories.

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