Our Man In Havana Quotes

I don't care a damn about men who are loyal to the people who pay them, to organizations...I don't think even my country means all that much. There are many countries in our blood, aren't there, but only one person. Would the world be in the mess it is if we were loyal to love and not to countries?

It is a great danger for everyone when what is shocking changes.

You should dream more. Reality in our century is not something to be faced.

They can print statistics and count the populations in hundreds of thousands, but to each man a city consists of no more than a few streets, a few houses, a few people. Remove those few and a city exists no longer except as a pain in the memory, like a pain of an amputated leg no longer there.

They haven't left us much to believe in, have they?--even disbelief. I can't believe in anything bigger than a home or vaguer than a human being.

As long as nothing happens anything is possible...

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

Time gives poetry to a battlefield...

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

A romantic is usually afraid in case reality doesn't come up to expectations.

It was a city to visit, not a city to live in, but it was the city where Wormold had first fallen in love and he was held to it as though to the scene of a disaster. Time gives poetry to a battlefield.

They had the comfort of not learning from experience.

A picture postcard is a symptom of loneliness.

Ten years ago he would have followed her, but middle-age is the period of sad caution.

You are interested in a person, not in life, and people die or leave us ... But if you are interested in life it never lets you down. I am interested in the blueness of 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 concerning the blueness of cheese that will never come to a conclusion.

Childhood was the germ of all mistrust. You were cruelly joked upon and then you cruelly joked. You lost the remembrance of pain through inflicting it.

And how is Uncle Edward? or is he dead? I've reached the time of life when relatives die unnoticed.

When you feel unable to change your bar you have become old.

He began to realize what the criminal class knows so well, the impossibility of explaining anything to a man with power.

There are times, aren't there, when Shakespeare is a little dull.

The act of lust and the act of love are the same; it cannot be falsified like a sentiment.

You should dream more, Mr Wormold. Reality in our century is not something to be faced.’ 2

I said what do you mean by his country? A flag someone invented two hundred years ago? The Bench of Bishops arguing about divorce and the House of Commons shouting Ya at each other across the floor? Or do you mean the T.U.C. and British Railways and the Co-op?

He had no accomplice except the credulity of other men.

He felt the sad relief of a man who realizes that there is one love at least that no longer hurts him.

...to each man a city consists of no more than a few streets, a few houses, a few people. Remove those few and a city exists no longer except as a pain in the memory...

He sat heavily down on a tall tubular adjustable chair, which shortened suddenly under his weight and split him on the floor. Somebody always leaves a banana-skin on the scene of a tragedy.

They can print statistics and count the populations in hundreds of thousands, but to each man a city consists of no more than a few streets, a few houses, a few people. Remove those few and a city exists no longer except as a pain in the memory, like the pain of an amputated leg no longer there.

You can be certain of what you’ve done, you can judge death, but to save a man – that takes more than six years of training, and in the end you can never be quite sure that it was you who saved him.

Навлязоха в новия квартал Ведадо, застроен с ниски кремавобели къщи — собственост на богаташи. На колкото по-малко етажи беше къщата, толкова по-богат бе обитателят ѝ. Само един милионер можеше да си позволи да построи бунгало върху площ на цял небостъргач.

I don’t care a damn about men who are loyal to the people who pay them, to organizations… I don’t think even my country means all that much. There are many countries in our blood, aren’t there, but only one person. Would the world be in the mess it is if we were loyal to love and not to countries?

I was sitting on the bench outside his barn, reading an old copy of Our Man in Havana from his shelf. It turned out that I still loved reading. I loved that a novelist on the payroll of MI6 had dreamed up a hapless vacuum-cleaner salesman, drafted into the Secret Intelligence Service so that he might better fund the extravagant lifestyle of his beautiful daughter. I loved that I could read about this man for hours and never once pause to overthink my own life. I loved that, with a book in my hand and no urgent need to be anywhere, or to be doing anything, I felt like a Sarah I’d entirely forgotten.

Do you never worry about anything?’ ‘I have a secret defence, Mr Wormold. I am interested in life.

Dear Mr Wormold, surely you realize there are people who expect to be tortured and others who would be outraged by the idea. One never tortures except by a kind of mutual agreement.

Why did you set fire to Earl?’ ‘I was tempted by the devil,’ she said. ‘Milly, please be sensible.’ ‘Saints have been tempted by the devil.’ ‘You are not a saint.’ ‘Exactly. That’s why I fell.

(Segura) "...surely you realise there are people who expect to be tortured and others who would be outraged by the idea. One never tortures except by a kind of mutual agreement. ... Dr Hasselbacher does not belong to the torturable class." (Wormold) "Who does?" (Segura) "The poor in my own country, in any Latin American country. The poor of Central Europe and the Orient. Of course in your welfare states you have no poor, so you are untorturable. In Cuba the police can deal as harshly as they like with emigres from Latin America and the Baltic States, but not with visitors from your country or Scandinavia. It is an instinctive matter on both sides....

You kill a man – that is so easy,’ Dr Hasselbacher said, ‘it needs no skill. You can be certain of what you’ve done, you can judge death, but to save a man – that takes more than six years of training, and in the end you can never be quite sure that it was you who saved him. Germs are killed by other germs. People just survive.

He went upstairs and opened the telegram; it was addressed to a department in the British Consulate, and the figures which followed had an ugly look like the lottery tickets that remained unsold on the last day of a draw. There was 2674 and then a string of five-figure numerals: 42811 79145 72312 59200 80947 62533 10605 and so on. It was his first telegram and he noticed that it was addressed from London. He was not even certain (so long ago his lesson seemed) that he could decode it, but he recognised a single group, 59200, which had an abrupt and monitory appearance as though Hawthorne that moment had come accusingly up the stairs. Gloomily he took down Lamb's 'Tales from Shakespeare' - how he had always detested Elia and the essay on Roast Pork. The first group of figures, he remembered, indicated the page, the line and the word with which the coding began. 'Dionysia, the wicked wife of Cleon,' he read, 'met with an end proportionable to her deserts'. He began to decode from 'deserts'. To his surprise something really did emerge. It was rather as though some strange inherited parrot had begun to speak.

but I have just aroused his chivalrous feelings and he is sorry for me, which he has mistaken for something deeper. Once I am gone he will turn to Mary, of that I am certain.’ Sir Hector placed his glass down on the sofa table. He came towards her, swaying a little as he walked. He was so close that she could smell the alcohol on his breath, with just the hint of a Havana cigar. She dropped her gaze, unable to meet his eyes, but he placed his finger beneath her chin, raising her head so that she was forced to look at him. ‘You are a good girl,’ he said thickly. ‘You are very young, but I think that you are old for your years. You don’t have to go, Lucetta my dear. There is an obvious answer to both our problems if you will hear me out.’ She brushed his hand away more in panic than anger. ‘Please don’t, Sir Hector.’ He caught her round the waist, holding her tightly so that her body was pressed against his. ‘You are not a schoolroom miss. You have known what it is to love and want a man, you told me so yourself. I am not trying to seduce you, my dear. I am offering you marriage, respectability, an old family name. In short, Lucetta, I am asking you to marry me. Disregard the gap in our ages, it doesn’t matter. I will do my

Car broken down. Everything very quiet. Hope to be back Thursday.’ A picture-postcard is a symptom of loneliness.

HE SAID TO Beatrice, ‘I was just leaning forward to switch on the engine. That saved me, I imagine. Of course it was his right to fire back. It was a real duel, but the third shot was mine.’ ‘What happened afterwards?’ ‘I had time to drive away before I was sick.’ ‘Sick?’ ‘I suppose if I hadn’t missed the war it would have seemed much less serious a thing killing a man. Poor Carter.’ ‘Why should you

Time gives poetry to a battlefield,

Perhaps soon the two of them would grow accustomed to each other and guilt would come to eat out of his hand.

In un mondo folle, ubbidire sembra sempre la soluzione più semplice.

Where?’ Milly asked, looking politely up from the Horse-woman’s Year Book. It was the evening hour when work was over and the last gold light lay flat across the roofs and touched the honey-coloured hair and the whisky in his glass.

A big wardrobe stood open and two white suits hung there like the last teeth in an old mouth.

But the clown whom he had seen last year with Milly at the circus – that clown was permanent, for his act never changed. That was the way to live; the clown was unaffected by the vagaries of public men and the enormous discoveries of the great. Wormold began to make faces in the glass. ‘What on earth are you doing, Father?’ ‘I wanted to make myself laugh.’ Milly giggled. ‘I thought you were being sad and serious.’ ‘That’s why I wanted to laugh. Do you remember the clown last year, Milly?’ ‘He walked off the end of a ladder and fell in a bucket of whitewash.’ ‘He falls in it every night at ten o’clock. We should all be clowns, Milly. Don’t ever learn from experience.’ ‘Reverend Mother says …’ ‘Don’t pay any attention to her. God doesn’t learn from experience, does He, or how could He hope anything of man? It’s the scientists who add the digits and make the same sum who cause the trouble. Newton discovering gravity – he learned from experience and after that …’ ‘I thought it was from an apple.’ ‘It’s the same thing. It was only a matter of time before Lord Rutherford went and split the atom. He had learned from experience too, and so did the men of Hiroshima. If only we had been born clowns, nothing bad would happen to us except a few bruises and a smear of whitewash. Don’t learn from experience, Milly. It ruins our peace and our lives.

The cruel come and go like cities and thrones and powers, leaving their ruins behind them. They had no permanence. But the clown whom he had seen last year with Milly at the circus—that clown was permanent, for his act never changed. That was the way to live; the clown was unaffected by the vagaries of public men and the enormous discoveries of the great.

God doesn’t learn from experience, does He, or how could He hope anything of man? It’s the scientists who add the digits and make the same sum who cause the trouble. Newton discovering gravity—he learned from experience and after that …

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.

Do you never worry about anything?’ ‘I have a secret defence, Mr Wormold. I am interested in life.’ ‘So am I, but …’ ‘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

A light burnt continually in front of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He remembered how he had overheard her at the age of four praying, ‘Hail Mary, quite contrary.

A man who has drank his drinks cold at the same expense for one week can never be presented with them warm again,” he explained, outlining his plan to create ice addicts out of Havana drinkers by supplying the stuff for free to the city’s bartenders for a limited time—then, once their customers were hooked, charging retail.

Childhood was the germ of all mistrust. You were cruelly joked upon and then you cruelly joked. You lost the remembrance of pain through inflicting it. But somehow, through no virtue of his own, he had never taken that course.

To live in Havana was to live in a factory that turned out human beauty on a conveyor-belt. He didn’t want beauty. He stopped under a lamp and looked directly back at the direct eyes. He wanted honesty.

He had an easy rapid insolence you had no time to resent before he had given fresh cause for annoyance.

The Communist Party of Cuba really had its start during the 1920’s, but not wanting to appear all too radical, the founders dropped the word “communist” and softened its name to the “Popular Socialist Party.” The more radical faction of the party eventually won out and again changed the name of their party to the more militant “Communist Revolutionary Union.” One of the primary founders and leaders of this Communist movement was our young man in Havana, “Julio Antonio Mella.” He never accepted things at face value and challenged authority whenever he felt that they were becoming abusive or self-serving. There was no doubting that he always stood out from the crowd. Not only was his influence felt among the students and faculty but he also had a reputation as an audacious ladies’ man. Being handsome, well-built, with a head of wavy brown hair and sensuous lips, he was known to have bedded many of his female followers. Some of these women said that he resembled a Grecian God. Athletically inclined, he worked out and also became a valued member of the university rowing team. The young lady that was with him when he was assassinated was Tina Modotti.

At least if I could kill him, I would kill for a reason. I would kill to show that you can't kill without being killed in your turn. I wouldn't kill for my country. I wouldn't kill for capitalism or Communism or social democracy or the welfare state - whose welfare? I would kill Carter because he killed Hasselbacher. A family-feud had been a better reason for murder than patriotism or the preference for one economic system over another. If I love or if I hate, let me love or hate as an individual. I will not be 59200/5 in anyone's global war.

Dr Hasselbacher never talked in terms of morality; it was outside the province of a doctor.

Captain Segura squeezed out a smile. It seemed to come from the wrong place like toothpaste when the tube splits.

The pink, grey, yellow pillars of what had once been the aristocratic quarter were eroded like rocks; an ancient coat of arts, smudged and featureless, was set over the doorway of a shabby hotel, and the shutters of a night-club were varnished in bright crude colours to protect them from the wet and salt of the sea. In the west the steel skyscrapers of the new town rose higher than lighthouses into the clear February sky. It was a city to visit, not a city to live in, but it was the city where Wormold had first fallen in love and he was held to it as though to a scene of a disaster. Time gives poetry to a battlefield, and perhaps Milly resembled a little flower on an old rampart where an attack had been repulsed with heavy loss many years ago.

They can print statistics and count the populations in hundreds of thousands, but to each man a city consists of no more than a few streets, a few houses, a few people.

Graham Greene, a wartime intelligence officer in West Africa, based his novel Our Man in Havana, about a spy who invents an entire network of bogus informants, on the Garbo story.

The separating years approached them both, like a station down the line, all gain for her and all loss for him.

something wrong with Mr MacDougall’s Scottishness. It smelt of fraud like Ossian. ‘Svenson,’ the gloomy Scandinavian said sharply from behind his little Swedish flag; at least Wormold thought it was Swedish: he could never distinguish with certainty between the Scandinavian colours. ‘Wormold,’ he said. ‘What is all this nonsense of the milk?’ ‘I think’ Wormold said, ‘that Dr Braun is being a little too literal.’ ‘Or funny,’ Carter said. ‘I don’t think Dr Braun has much sense of humour.’ ‘And what do you do, Mr Wormold?’ the Swede asked. ‘I don’t think

There are unimportant pieces in any game.

No. He doesn't belong to the torturable class.'        'I didn't know there were class-distinctions in torture.'        'Dear Mr Wormold, surely you realize there are people who expect to be tortured and others who would be outraged by the idea. One never tortures except by a kind of mutual agreement.

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

When I looked at him I could see all the delegates sitting there between his ribs and the chief speaker rising and saying, “Freedom is of importance to creative writers.” It was very uncanny at breakfast.