Quotes from Brighton Rock

Graham Greene ·  269 pages

Rating: (17.5K votes)


“You cannot conceive, nor can I, of the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock


“A brain was only capable of what it could conceive, and it couldn't conceive what it had never experienced”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock


“It's a good world if you don't weaken.”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock


“This was hell then; it wasn't anything to worry about: it was just his own familiar room.”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock


“People change,' she said
'Oh, no they don't. Look at me. I've never changed. It's like those sticks of rock: bite it all the way down, you'll still read Brighton. That's human nature.”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock



“She had an immense store of trivial memories and when she wasn't living in the future she was living in the past. As for the present - she got through that as quickly as she could, running away from things, running towards things, so that her voice was always a little breathless, her heart pounding at an escape or an expectation.”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock


“He was like a child with haemophilia: every contact drew blood.”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock


“It didn't matter anyway...he wasn't made for peace, he couldn't believe in it. Heaven was a word: hell was something he could trust.”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock


“Fun... human nature... does no one any harm... Regular as clockwork the old excuses came back into the alert, sad and dissatisfied brain--nothing ever matched the deep excitement of the regular desire. Men always failed you when it came to the act. She might just as well have been to the pictures.”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock


“He looked with horror round the room: nobody could say he hadn't done right to get away from this, to commit any crime... When the man opened his mouth he heard his father speaking, that figure in the corner was his mother: he bargained for his sister and felt no desire... He turned to Rose, 'I'm off,' and felt the faintest tinge of pity for goodness which couldn't murder to escape.”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock



“Don't you believe it. I'll tell you what life is. It's gaol, it's not knowing where to get some money. Worms and cataract, cancer. You hear 'em shrieking from the upper windows- children being born. It's dying slowly.”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock


“He put his mouth on her and kissed her on the cheek; he was afraid of the mouth-thoughts travel too easily from lip to lip.”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock


“That was what happened to a man in the end: the stuffy room, the wakeful children, the Saturday night movements from the other bed. Was there no escape--anywhere--for anyone? It was worth murdering a world.”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock


“Heaven was a word: hell was something he could trust.”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock


“She wasn’t religious. She didn’t believe in heaven or hell, only in ghosts, Ouija boards, tables which rapped and little inept voices speaking plaintively of flowers”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock



“You talk too easily,’ the Boy said.
‘Talk?’ Mr Prewitt said. ‘I could shake the world. Let them put me in the dock if they like. I’ll give them—revelation. I’ve sunk so deep I carry—’ he was shaken by an enormous windy self-esteem—he hiccupped twice—‘the secrets of the sewer.”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock


“She got up and he saw the skin of her thigh for a moment above the artificial silk, and a prick of sexual desire disturbed him like a sickness. That was what happened to a man in the end: the stuffy room, the wakeful children, the Saturday night movements from the other bed. Was there no escape––anywhere––for anyone? It was worth murdering a world.”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock


“...trying to extricate from the long day the grain of pleasure”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock


“Life was a series of complicated tactical exercises, as complicated as the alignments at Waterloo, thought out on a brass bedstead among the crumbs of sausage roll. [p107]”
― Graham Greene, quote from Brighton Rock


About the author

Graham Greene
Born place: in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, The United Kingdom
Born date October 2, 1904
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Regular people said they couldn’t tell the difference between one clone and another, did they? That was what came of spending too much time looking at faces and not enough wondering what shaped people and went on inside their heads.”
― Karen Traviss, quote from Hard Contact


“You told me I was making you crazy last night," he reminds me, drawing me out of my thoughts, back to a present I'm uncertain of.
"You are, Chris."
"Well, you are making me crazy, too."
"Is this supposed to be making me feel better?”
― Lisa Renee Jones, quote from If I Were You


“It's the fucking hardest thing to do—to be around the person you love, every day, and not be able to love them.”
― Jay McLean, quote from More Than Forever


“I would paint this fucking town in red if I have to until I found her.”
― B.B. Reid, quote from Fear You


“And the city itself was just a glow on the dark earth...”
― Monica Ali, quote from Brick Lane


Interesting books

The Queen's Fool
(80.2K)
The Queen's Fool
by Philippa Gregory
City of Golden Shadow
(21.9K)
City of Golden Shado...
by Tad Williams
The Histories
(33.8K)
The Histories
by Herodotus
Rot & Ruin
(29.6K)
Rot & Ruin
by Jonathan Maberry
Jemima J
(105.6K)
Jemima J
by Jane Green
The Memoirs of Cleopatra
(16.6K)
The Memoirs of Cleop...
by Margaret George

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.