The Quiet American

by Graham Greene

I preferred the title of reporter. I wrote what I saw. I took no action—even an opinion is a kind of action.

With no guarantee of the amount of time you have left it doesn”t seem worth starting even a train of thought.

I felt for the first time the premonitory chill of loneliness.

and air: I lived too much in the sun. I walked the long empty nave—this was not the Indo-China

Let us weigh the gain and loss,”“ he quoted, ““in wagering that God is, let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose you lose nothing.”“

The helmeted Martian face looked wistfully out, down the golden groves among the great humps and arches of porous stone, and the wounds of murder ceased to bleed.