Book: The Quiet American by Graham Greene

One watch tower sank behind, another appeared, like weights on a balance.

To be in love is to see yourself as someone else sees you, it is to be in love with the falsified and exalted image of yourself. In love we are incapable of honour--the courageous act is no more than playing a part to an audience of two.

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.

She's no child. She's tougher than you'll ever be. Do you know the kind of polish that doesn't take scratches? That's Phuong. She can survive a dozen of us. She'll get old, that's all. She'll suffer from childbirth and hunger and cold and rheumatism, but she'll never suffer like we do from thoughts, obsessions--she won't scratch, she'll only decay.

He'll always be innocent, 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.

Find me an uncomplicated child. When we are young we are a jungle of complications. We simplify as we get older.

-- The Quiet American by Graham Greene