The art of 'making every scrap useful'

 

“The great advantage of being a writer is that you're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see - every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.” – Graham Greene

 

Born in England on this date in 1904, Greene was believed to have worked as a spy for the British government during World War II and beyond while continuing to hone his writing career, which ultimately was one of the greatest of the 20th century.  One fellow writer said he was the most accomplished living novelist in the English  language. 

  

Shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Greene produced 25 novels that mostly explored the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world.  He also wrote short stories, essays, plays and movie scripts and worked as a journalist during a 67-year career.  He was working as an editor on The Times of London when his first novel, The Man Within, was published in 1929 to immediate critical acclaim.   In 1941, he won the prestigious Hawthornden Prize for his masterpiece The Power and the Glory.           

 
Considered one of the most “cinematic” of 20^th century writers (nearly all of his novels and many of his short stories were made into movies or television shows), an accomplishment he said came about because he strived for "lively" and sometimes controversial characters.   

 

“(You know) the moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about,” he said, “that moment he's alive and you just have to leave it to him to do whatever he prefers.”