writing in the dust

[Graham] Greene learned at an early age how fully the subconscious has access to deeper truths than the waking mind can ever find, and to feel that everything that matters in life — whether it has to do with love or faith or even writing — arises from that domain that we can’t explain away. Anyone who writes a book knows that he’s tapping some presence within himself that he may not even recognize, let alone acknowledge; when the book comes out, his old friends start treating him as a stranger (who is this weird guy they’ve met on the page?), while many strangers take him to be their closest friend. Greene’s interest in the power of such mysteries was one reason, of course, why he could never turn his back on faith, even though he could never give himself fully to it, either.