
The Quiet American

I said, ‘We seem to have talked about pretty nearly everything except God. We’d better leave him to the small hours.’ ‘You don’t believe in Him, do you?’ ‘No.’ ‘Things to me wouldn’t make sense without Him.’ ‘They don’t make sense to me with him.’
Graham Greene • The Quiet American
Smart atheist dialog is always among my favorites.
I’m not so stupid. One doesn’t take one’s enemy’s book as a souvenir. There it is on your shelf. The Role of the West. Who is this York Harding?’ ‘He’s the man you are looking for, Vigot. He killed Pyle—at long range.’ ‘I don’t understand.’ ‘He’s a superior sort of journalist—they call them diplomatic correspondents. He gets hold of an idea and
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You say that we’ve always tried to tell the truth to each other, but, Thomas, your truth is always so temporary. What’s the good of arguing with you, or trying to make you see reason?
Graham Greene • The Quiet American
The lieutenant said, ‘Have you seen enough?’ speaking savagely, almost as though I had been responsible for these deaths. Perhaps to the soldier the civilian is the man who employs him to kill, who includes the guilt of murder in the pay-envelope and escapes responsibility.
Graham Greene • The Quiet American
‘The trouble was,’ I said, ‘he got mixed up.’ ‘To speak plainly,’ Vigot said, ‘I am not altogether sorry. He was doing a lot of harm.’ ‘God save us always,’ I said, ‘from the innocent and the good.’ ‘The good?’ ‘Yes, good. In his way. You’re a Roman Catholic. You wouldn’t recognize his way. And anyway, he was a damned Yankee.’
Graham Greene • The Quiet American
This book hinges on this idea of intentions; it's the key to its morality. Every person, to a person, has their own internal judgment playing out in their actions—ambivalence to extremism. It's a beautiful book and this dialog is emblematic of the presentation.
Wouldn’t we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no human being will ever understand another, not a wife a husband, a lover a mistress, nor a parent a child? Perhaps that’s why men have invented God—a being capable of understanding. Perhaps if I wanted to be understood or to understand I would bamboozle myself into
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There was also a book of chess problems. It didn’t seem much for the end of the working day, but, after all, he had had Phuong. Tucked away behind the anthology there was a paper-backed book called The Physiology of Marriage. Perhaps he was studying sex, as he had studied the East, on paper. And the keyword was marriage. Pyle believed in being
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This concept of being involved will come up a bunch.
‘Great victory north-west of Hanoi. French recaptured two villages they never told us they’d lost. Heavy Vietminh casualties. Haven’t been able to count their own yet but will let us know in a week or two.’
Graham Greene • The Quiet American
This is the definition of a non-win, ending up neutral against existing perception.
It was the Economic Attaché. He beamed down at us from the terrace above, a great warm welcoming smile, full of confidence, like the man who keeps his friends because he uses the right deodorants.