77 quotes
If you have abandoned one faith, do not abandon all faith. There is always an alternative to the faith we lose. Or is it the same faith under another mask?
The Comedians (1966)
God...created a number of possibilities in case some of his prototypes failed — that is the meaning of evolution.
Travels with My Aunt (1969)
Sooner or later...one has to take sides – if one is to remain human.
The Quiet American (1955)
I had very good dentures once. Some magnificent gold work. It’s the only form of jewelry a man can wear that women fully appreciate.
Travels with My Aunt (1969)
Can you hate something you don't believe in? And yet he called himself a free-thinker. What an impossible paradox, to be free and to be so obsessed.
The Hint of an Explanation (1948)
Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.
The Quiet American (1955)
Thought's a luxury. Do you think the peasant sits and thinks of God and democracy when he gets inside his mud hut at night?
They [governments] talk about the people and the proletariat, I talk about the fools and the suckers.
Have you seen a room from which faith has gone?...Like a marriage from which love has gone...And patience, patience everywhere like a fog.
The Potting Shed (1957)
The moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about. At that moment he's alive and you leave it to him.
If I had to choose between life in the Soviet Union and life in the USA, I would certainly choose the Soviet Union.
Death will come in any case, and there is a long afterwards if the priests are right and nothing to fear if they are wrong.
The Honorary Consul (1973)
Sometimes I see myself reflected too closely in other men for comfort, and then I have an enormous wish to believe in the saints, in heroic virtue.
The End of the Affair (1951)
A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.
“Oh, I’m not a Berkeleian. I believe my back’s against this wall. I believe there’s a sten gun over there.”
The Quiet American (1955)
He’ll always be innocent, you can’t blame the innocent, they are always guiltless. All you can do is control them or eliminate them. Innocence is a kind of insanity.
The Quiet American (1955)
There is not so much virginity in the world that one can afford not to love when one finds it.
Journey Without Maps (1936)
Why, after all, should we expect God to punish the innocent with more life?
The Power and the Glory (1940)
In a mad world it always seems simpler to obey.
Our Man in Havana (1958)
You wouldn't believe it now, but I've had forty niggers under me, doing what I told them to.
The Basement Room (1935)