Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.
ATTRIBUTION:
Graham Greene (1904–1991), British novelist. The Quiet American, pt. 1, ch. 3, sct. 3 (1955).
Later in the book, the narrator describes Pyle—”the quiet American” of the title, a fumbling idealist in Cold-War Vietnam—in similar terms: “What’s the good? 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.” (pt. 3, ch. 2, sct. 1).
