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41 " If you live in a place for long you cease to read about it. "
― Graham Greene , The Quiet American
42 " Pyle could see pain when it was in front of his eyes. (I don’t write that as a sneer; there are so many of us who can’t) "
43 " 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 . . . "
44 " Even though my reason wanted the state of death, I was afraid like a virgin of the act. "
45 " Who could blame her for seeking my scars in return? When we are unhappy we hurt. "
46 " For a moment I had felt elation as on the instant of waking before one remembers. "
47 " I was an only child. It's a great disadvantage being an only child. "
48 " I shut my eyes and she was again the same as she used to be: she was the hiss of steam, the clink of a cup, she was a certain hour of the night and the promise of rest. "
49 " There wasn't any point in being angry with anyone - the offender was too obviously myself... "
50 " Oh, and there was pride, of course. It takes a long time before we cease to feel proud of being wanted. "
51 " I couldn't resist the temptation to tease Pyle - it is, after all, the weapon of weakness and I was weak. "
52 " I wondered whether she would consent to sleep with me that night if Pyle never came, but I knew that when I had smoked four pipes I would no longer want her. "
53 " I was afraid like a virgin of the act. I would have liked death to come with due warning, so that I could prepare myself. For what? I didn't know, nor how, except by taking a look around at the little I would be leaving. "
54 " Is confidence based on a rate of exchange? We used to speak of sterling qualities. Have we got to talk now about a dollar love? A dollar love, of course, would include marriage and Junior and Mother's Day, even though later it might include Reno or the Virgin Islands or wherever they go nowadays for their divorces. A dollar love had good intentions, a clear conscience, and to Hell with everybody. "
55 " I thought to myself: 'Is the pain a little less than when I went away?' and tried to persuade myself that it was so. "
56 " It's always the same wherever one goes- it's not the most powerful rulers who have the happiest populations "
57 " I thought of Phuong just because of her complete absence. So it always is: when you escape to a desert the silence shouts in your ear. "
58 " Perhaps I should have seen that fanatic gleam, the quick response to a phrase, the magic sound of figures: Fifth Column, Third Force, Seventh Day. I might have saved us all a lot of trouble . . . "
59 " The Minister had a great respect for Pyle - Pyle had taken a good degree in - well, one of those subjects Americans can take degrees in: perhaps public relations or theatrecraft, perhaps even Far Eastern studies (he had read a lot of books). "
60 " I felt for the first time the premonitory of loneliness.It was all fantastic, and yet, and yet...He might be a poor lover, but I was a poor man. He had in his hand the infinite riches of respectability "