Graham Greene

I wondered what depth of homesickness lay behind his odd choice of what to observe in a scene so unfamiliar.

Strangers found them picturesque, but there is nothing picturesque in treachery and distrust

I found his light reading on another shelf: a portable Thomas Wolfe and a mysterious anthology called The Triumph of Life and a selection of American poetry.

fellow …’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Death takes people in different ways.’ Perhaps he had really loved Pyle. ‘What did you say in your cable?’ I asked

Yes. They killed him because he was too innocent to live. He was young and ignorant and silly and he got involved. He had no more of a notion than any of you what the whole affair’s about, and you gave him money and York Harding’s books on the East and said, “Go ahead. Win the East for Democracy

For the first time he spotted Phuong and when I looked back at him he was watching me with pained perplexity: an eternal brother who didn’t understand.

This was a land of rebellious barons. It was like Europe in the Middle Ages

Pyle could see pain when it was in front of his eyes. (I don’t write that as a sneer; after all there are many of us who can’t.)

From childhood I had never believed in permanence, and yet I had longed for it

Lose life and one would lose nothing again for ever. I envied those who could believe in a God and I distrusted them.