Graham Greene

Pyle got away from Phat Diem the morning he arrived: he had fulfilled his mission—to speak to me about Phuong, and there was nothing to keep him

Was he the only one that mattered? I wondered angrily, and yet I knew that he didn’t intend it that way. To him the whole affair would be happier as soon as he didn’t feel mean—I would be happier, Phuong would be happier, the whole world would be happier, even the Economic Attaché and the Minister. Spring had come to Indo-China now that Pyle was mean no longer

All one could do was try to make the future less hard, to break the future gently when it came, and even opium had its value there

Is the colonel seriously telling us,’ Granger said, ‘that he’s had time to count the enemy dead and not his own?’

Patiently the colonel wove his web of evasion, which he

We had no God-given right to information. We didn’t have to fight Left-Wing deputies in Paris as well as the troops of Ho Chi Minh between the Red and the Black Rivers. We were not dying

You can say that if a man is wounded in this fighting, not seriously wounded, just wounded, he knows that he is probably a dead man

A small one, if you don’t mind. I’m not very keen on hard liquor

‘Is that how you make love in America—figures of income and blood-group

Tell her I don’t expect her to love me right away. That will come in time, but tell her what I offer is security and respect. That doesn’t sound very exciting, but perhaps it’s better than passion

will you pass her on with the furniture?’

‘The furniture isn’t mine