“What are we doing to each other? Because I know that I am doing to him exactly what he is doing to me. We are sometimes so happy, and never in our lives have we known more unhappiness.”
Work
The story of an obsessive love affair between a married woman and a young up-and-coming writer. Almost as soon as he begins the affair the writer realizes it cannot last though he still cannot stop himself from becoming jealous of the woman’s husband and cannot bring himself to end it.
Quotes
Showing 1-9 of 9
Graham Greene
Canonical work source
“What are we doing to each other? Because I know that I am doing to him exactly what he is doing to me. We are sometimes so happy, and never in our lives have we known more unhappiness.”
“It's a strange thing to discover and to believe that you are loved when you know that there is nothing in you for anybody but a parent or a God to love.”
“I hate you, God. I hate you as though you actually exist.”
“The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness. In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain...”
“I recognized my work for what it was--as unimportant a drug as cigarettes to get one through the weeks and years. If we are extinguished by death, as I still try to believe, what point is th...”
“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.”
“So much in writing depends on the superficiality of one's days. One may be preoccupied with shopping and income tax returns and chance conversations, but the stream of the unconscious contin...”
“I had to touch you with my hands, I had to taste you with my tongue; one can't love and do nothing.”
“disappointment had to be postponed, hope kept alive as long as possible;”