Patrick White

“At times his arrogance did resolve itself into simplicity, though it was difficult, especially for strangers, to distinguish these occasions.”

— Patrick White

I developed the habit of writing novels behind a closed door, or at my uncle's, on the dining table.

— Patrick White

“There are moments when the eyes flow into each other. Then the souls are wrapped around each other across a distance”

— Patrick White

“The worst thing about love between human beings is that when you are prepared to love them they don't want it; when…

— Patrick White

In fact I enjoyed every minute of my life at King's, especially the discovery of French and German literature.

— Patrick White

Because he had nothing to hide, he did perhaps appear to have forfeited a little of his strength. But that is the…

— Patrick White

She would have liked to sit upon a rock and listen to words, not of any man, but detached, mysterious, poetic words…

— Patrick White

“Superficially my war was a comfortable exercise in futility carried out in a grand Scottish hotel amongst the bridge players and swillers…

— Patrick White

To understand the stars would spoil their appearance.

— Patrick White

My father and mother were second cousins, though they did not meet till shortly before their marriage.

— Patrick White

Then about 1951 I began writing again, painfully, a novel I called in the beginning A Life Sentence on Earth, but which…

— Patrick White

“Where have you been, Theodora?," Mrs Goodman asked. "Walking, Mother." "And whom did you see?" Mrs Goodman flung her grammar like a…

— Patrick White

I expect we are all jealous of the women in their past, but how much less exciting if the women had not…

— Patrick White

Probably induced by the asthma, I started reading and writing early on, my literary efforts from the age of about nine running…

— Patrick White

“He himself, he realized, had always been most abominably frightened, even at the height of his divine power, a frail god upon…

— Patrick White

If I have not lost my mind I can sometimes hear it preparing to defect

— Patrick White

“Such was the texture of her marble. [In a description of Laura Trevelyan.]”

— Patrick White

Even if a university should turn out to be another version of a school, I had decided I could lose myself afterwards…

— Patrick White

“There's nothing so inhuman as a human being.”

— Patrick White

“I would like to believe in the myth that we grow wiser with age. In a sense my disbelief is wisdom. Those…

— Patrick White

“To make yourself, it is also necessary to destroy yourself.”

— Patrick White

Life is full of alternatives but no choice.

— Patrick White

“It was Sunday, and Mumma had gone next door with Lena and the little ones. Under the pepper tree in the yard…

— Patrick White

“Human relationships are vast as deserts: they demand all daring, she seemed to suggest. ”

— Patrick White

She had begun to read in the beginning as a protection from the frightening and unpleasant things. She continued because, apart from…

— Patrick White