Insecurity twists meanings and poisons trust. In a closely beleaguered city every sentry is a potential traitor.
Graham GreeneRead
One's life is more formed, I sometimes think, by books than by human beings: it is out of books one learns about love and pain at second hand. Even if we have the happy chance to fall in love, it is because we have been conditioned by what we have read, and if I had never known love at all, perhaps it was because my father's library had not contained the right books.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Books shape our understanding of life experiences more than personal interactions do.
In this quote, Graham Greene emphasizes the significant influence that literature has on our perceptions of love, pain, and other profound human experiences. He suggests that our relationships and feelings are often informed by the narratives we encounter in books, indicating that literature plays a crucial role in shaping our emotional and intellectual development, sometimes even more than our direct experiences with people.
Themes
BooksLifeLoveExperienceLiterature
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be shared during a panel discussion about the impact of literature on emotional intelligence.
More from Graham Greene
All quotes →It seemed to Scobie that life was immeasurably long. Couldn’t the test of man have been carried out in fewer years? Couldn’t we have committed our first major sin at seven, have ruined ourselves for love or hate at ten, have clutched at redemption on a fifteen-year-old deathbed?
Graham GreeneRead
God is love. I don't say the heart doesn't feel a taste of it, but what a taste. The smallest glass of love mixed with a pint pot of ditch-water. We wouldn't recognize that love. It might even look like hate. It would be enough to scare us - God's love.
Graham GreeneRead
Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.
Graham GreeneRead
Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.
Graham GreeneRead
Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully.
Graham GreeneRead
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Since belief determines behavior, doesn't it make sense that we should be teaching ethical, moral values in every home and in every school in America?
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