(Orson Welles as Harry Lime in The Third Man; see last quote in list)
Famous 20th century English novelist (1904-1991). Author of The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter, The Third Man, A Burnt-Out Case, The Comedians, Our Man in Havana, Brighton Rock, The Quiet American, The End of the Affair, The Ministry of Fear, Monsignor Quixote, The Confidential Agent, The Honorary Consul, The Human Factor, A Gun for Sale, and many other books.
There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.
It is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.
When we are not sure, we are most alone.
No human being can really understand another, and no one can arrange another’s happiness.
The world doesn’t make heroes anymore.
Heresy is only another word for freedom of thought.
Failure too is a form of death.
Reality in our century is not something to be faced.
It’s a good world if you don’t weaken.
Man is made by the places in which he lives.
Sooner or later… one has to take sides– if one is to remain human.
In a mad world it always seems simpler to obey.
Our worst enemies here are not the ignorant and the simple, however cruel; our worst enemies are the intelligent and corrupt.
There is a virtue in slowness, which we have lost.
As long as nothing happens anything is possible.
Hate is a lack of imagination.
Most things disappoint till you look deeper.
Death was far more certain than God.
In the end there is no desire so deep as the simple desire for companionship.
In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace–and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.