The art of 'making every scrap useful'

 

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

 

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

  

Shortlisted for the Nobel Prize inLiterature, Greene produced 25 novels that mostly explored the ambivalent moraland political issues of the modern world.  He also wrote shortstories, essays, plays and movie scripts and worked as a journalist during a67-year career.  He was working as an editor on The Times ofLondon when his first novel, The Man Within, was publishedin 1929 to immediate critical acclaim.   In 1941, he won theprestigious Hawthornden Prize for his masterpiece The Power and theGlory.           

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

 

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