A Story Has No Beginning or End

A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment from which to look back or from which to look ahead. I say “one chooses” with the inaccurate pride of a professional writer who—when he has been seriously noted at all—has been praised for his technical ability, but do I in fact of my own will choose that black wet January night on the Common, in 1946, the sight of Henry Miles slanting across the wide river of rain, or did these images choose me?

GRAHAM GREENE