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“Always I find when I begin to write there is one character who obstinately will not come alive. There is nothing psychologically false about him, but he sticks, he has to be pushed around, words have to be found for him, all the technical skill I have acquired through laborious years has to be employed in making him appear alive to my readers { } He never does the unexpected thing, he never surprises me, he never takes charge. Every other character helps. He only hinders [ ]. And yet I cannot do without him. I can imagine a God feeling in just the same way about us. The saints, one would suppose, in a sense create themselves. They come alive. They are capable of the surprising act or word, they stand outside the plot, unconditioned by it. But we have to be pushed around. We have the obstinancy of nonexistence. We are inextricable bound to the plot, and wearily God forces us, here and there, according to his intention, characters without poetry, without free will, whose only importance is that somewhere, at some time, we help to furnish the scene in which a living character moves and speaks, providing perhapsthe saints with the opportunities for their free will.” — Graham Greene