More on Where Characters Come From: Graham Greene (The Paris Review Interviews, Vol. 2)
Graham Greene
Interviewer: Many of your most memorable characters, Raven for instance, are from low life. Have you ever had any experience of low life?
Greene: No, very little.
Interviewer: What did you know about poverty?
Greene: I have never known it. I was "short," yes, in the sense that I had to be careful for the first eight years of my adult life but I have never been any closer.
Interviewer: Then you don't draw your characters from life?
Greene: No, one never knows enough about characters in real life to put them into novels. One gets started and then, suddenly, one cannot remember what toothpaste they use, what are their views on interior decoration, and one is stuck utterly. No, major characters emerge; minor ones may be photographed.
