On happiness

…but then happiness is repetitious, while pain is marked by crises which sear the memory.  Happiness survives only in the odd incident.  Being happy is almost like making love: one attains a state of blissful ‘nothing’—one does not remember, one remembers only happiness, a state of contentment.  

We were happy.

[Graham Greene in conversation with Marie-Françoise Allain]

Notes