Eric’s Reviews > The Quiet American > Status Update

"Must I too have my foot thrust in the mess of life before I saw the pain?"

"Sooner or later one has to take sides... If one is to remain human."

"Wouldn't we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no human being will ever understand another, not a wife a husband, a lover a mistress, nor a parent a child? Perhaps that's why men have invented Go - a being capable of understanding."

"Perhaps to the soldier the civilian is the man who employs him to kill, who includes the guilt of murder in the pay-envelope and escapes responsibility."

"I never met a man [country] who had better motives for all the trouble he caused."