Graham Greene: Our Man in Havana https://lailalalami.com/2009/quotable-graham-greene/?doing_wp_cron=1594474604.1830689907073974609375: '"Did you torture him?" Captain Segura laughed. "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." "There"s torture and torture. When they broke up Dr Hasselbacher"s laboratory they were torturing…?" "One can never tell what amateurs may do. The police had no concern in that. Dr Hasselbacher does not belong to the torturable class." "Who does?" "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 émigrés from Latin America and the Baltic States, but not with visitors from your country or Scandinavia. It is an instinctive matter on both sides… .#noted #2020-07-11