8 Graham Greene Quotes on Faith

Graham Greene quotes on faith

1. You can't conceive, nor can I, the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.

2. Have you seen a room from which faith has gone?...Like a marriage from which love has gone...And patience, patience everywhere like a fog.

7. Those who marry God can become domesticated too-it's just as hum-drum a marriage as all the others. The word 'Love' means a formal touch of the lips as in the ceremony of the Mass, and 'Ave Maria' like 'dearest' is a phrase to open a letter. This marriage like the world's marriages was held together by habits and tastes shared in common between God and themselves-it was God's taste to be worshipped and their taste to worship, but only at stated hours like a suburban embrace on a Saturday night.

21. The old lady knelt, saying her 'Hail Mary'; She didn't believe - but among Catholics even the sceptical are courteous.

36. I sat on my bed and I said to God: You've taken her, but you haven't got me yet. I know Your cunning. It's You who take us up to a high place and offer us the whole universe. You're a devil, God, tempting us to leap. But I don't want Your peace and I don't want Your love. I wanted something very simple and very easy: I wanted Sarah for a lifetime and You took her away. With Your great schemes You ruin our happiness like a harvester ruins a mouse's nest: I hate You, God, I hate You as though You existed.

54. Communism, my friend, is more than Marxism, just as Catholicism ... is more than the Roman Curia. There is a mystique as well as a politique....Catholics and communists have commited great crimes, but at least they have not stood aside, like an established society, and been indifferent. I would rather have blood on my hands than water like Pilate...if you have abandoned one faith, do not abandon all faith. There is always an alternative to the faith we lose. Or is it the same faith under another mask?

61. Death will come in any case, and there is a long afterwards if the priests are right and nothing to fear if they are wrong.

70. They are always saying God loves us. If that's love I'd rather have a bit of kindness.