Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Would that I were this quick

“Greene tells how he once reproached Waugh for his ‘anti-Semitic rudeness’ to Korda at a dinner party. Waugh said ‘He had no right to bring his mistress to Carol Reed’s house’, to which Greene said, ‘But I had my mistress with me’. Waugh’s caustic reply, ‘That is quite different. She is a married woman’, deserved a monosyllabic retort, which Greene remained too deferential to deliver.”

     Frederick Raphael, reviewing Graham Greene: a life in letters (“Terriblement anglais”), Times literary supplement no. 5469 (25 January 2008): 4.

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