The Quiet American by Greene

Ref: Graham Greene (1955). The Quiet American. Cornelsen Verlag. 

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Summary

  • English war reporter Thomas Fowler lives in Saigon and reports on the French- Vietnamese War. Estranged from his wife who lives back in London, Thomas has been living with his girlfriend, Phuong, an 18-yo Vietnamese women. Alden Pyle, an American OSS agent working under the guise of the US’ economic development program in Saigon, enters the US Mission and begins supporting a third party, General The’s Caodist forces, to regain democratic control of Vietnam. Fowler and Pyle develop a strange friendship despite Pyle’s repeated attempts to take Phuong from Fowler, which he inevitably does. Pyle’s backing of General The and clandestine support leads to the bombings of innocents throughout Saigon. Despite Fowlers’ repeated claims of neutrality in the conflict and Pyle’s saving of Fowler’s life, Fowler works through Vietnamese agents to have Pyle killed. In the end, Phuong returns to Fowler and his estranged wife grants him the divorce he’s been seeking.

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Misc Quotes

  • “A man becomes trustworthy when you trust him.”

  • “No French officer would care to spend the night alone with two scared guards in one of these towers. Why, even a platoon have been known to hand over their officers. Sometimes the Viet’s have better success with a megaphone than a bazooka. I don’t blame them. They don’t believe in anything either. You and your like are trying to make a war with the help of people who just aren’t interested.”

  • “I know the record. Siam goes. Malaya goes. Indonesia goes. What does “go” mean? If I believed in your god and another life, I’d bet my future harp against your golden crown that in 500 years there may be no New York or London, but they’ll be growing paddy in these fields, they’ll be carrying their produce to markets on long poles wearing their pointed hats. The small boys will be sitting on the buffaloes.”

  • “They’ll be forced to believe what they are told. They won’t be allowed to think for themselves.”… “Thoughts a luxury. Do you think the peasant sits and thinks of God and democracy when he gets inside his mud hut at night?”

  • “It’s a cliché to call them children (women)- but there’s one thing which is childish. They love you in return for kindness, security, the presents you give them- they hate you for a blow or an injustice. They don’t know what it’s like just walking into a room and loving a stranger.”

  • “I thought how strange it was that men of my profession would make only two news-lines out of all this night.”

  • “I felt physically sick. It was a long time since I had received a letter from my wife. I had forced her to write it and I could feel her pain in every line. Her pain struck at my pain: we were back at the old routine of hurting each other. If only it were possibly to love without injury- fidelity isn’t enough: I had been faithful to Anne and yet I had injured her. The hurt is in the act of possession: we are too small in mind and body to possess another person without pride or to be possessed without humiliation. In a way I was glad that my wife had struck out at me again- I had forgotten her pain for too long, and this was the only kind of recompense I could give her. Unfortunately, the innocent are always involved in any conflict.”

  • The other kind of war (actual war) is more dangerous than this (love). One does less damage with a mortar.”

  • “But Thomas, your truth is always so temporary.”

  • “Perhaps truth and humility go together; so many lies come from our pride.” 

  • “I wish sometimes you had a few bad motives, you might understand a little more about human beings. And that applies to your country too, Pyle.”

  • “You can’t blame the innocent, they are always guiltless. All you can do is control them or eliminate them. Innocence is a kind of insanity.”

  • “He was impregnably armored by his good intentions and his ignorance.”

  • “Suffering is not increased by numbers: One body can contain all the suffering the world can feel.”

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