Our Man in Havana

by Graham Greene

‘You are interested in a person, not in life, and people die or leave us—I’m sorry; I wasn’t referring to your wife. But if you are interested in life it never lets you down. I am interested in the blueness of the cheese. You don’t do crosswords, do you, Mr Wormold? I do, and they are like people: one reaches an end. I can finish any crossword within an hour, but I have a discovery concerned with the blueness of cheese that will never come to a conclusion—although of course one dreams that perhaps a time might come … One day I must show you my laboratory.’

‘You should dream more, Mr Wormold. Reality in our century is not something to be faced.’

There was always another side to a joke, the side of the victim.

Mercy and forgiveness were scarcely virtues in a Christian; they came too easily.