The Third Man

by Graham Greene

Again Martins had marked his card with the sesame phrase: "A friend of Harry Lime's."

A racket works very like a totalitarian party.

Martins looked back through the years without admiration, as he thought: "He's never grown up." Marlowe's devils wore squibs attached to their tails: evil was like Peter Pan—it carried with it the horrifying and horrible gift of eternal youth.