Patrick White
Patrick White
Patrick Victor Martindale Whitewas an Australian writer who is widely regarded as one of the most important English-language novelists of the 20th century. From 1935 to his death, he published 12 novels, three short-story collections and eight plays...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth28 May 1912
CountryAustralia
bad plays publishing unkindness
I continued writing the bad plays which fortunately nobody would produce, just as no one did me the unkindness of publishing my early novels.
australia eighteen land life persuaded return rising whether
When I was rising eighteen I persuaded my parents to let me return to Australia and at least see whether I could adapt myself to life on the land before going up to Cambridge.
breathed cannot component dividing faith labeling parts trying
I think it is impossible to explain faith. It is like trying to explain air, which one cannot do by dividing it into its component parts and labeling them scientifically. It must be breathed to be understood.
colonial english explore four holidays spent spite visit
In spite of holidays when I was free to visit London theatres and explore the countryside, I spent four very miserable years as a colonial at an English school.
confidence gotten maybe
They prevented us from getting that first goal. Had we have gotten that maybe we would have got a little confidence and maybe come back.
living london months second york
During the early, comparatively uneventful months I hovered between London and New York writing too hurriedly a second novel, The Living and the Dead.
energy hoped kept pick
We hoped that we could come out and get the first and the energy would pick us up, but they kept getting the bounces.
bury great time
I just had a great time out there. When you get chances, you've got to bury them, and I did.
celebrate eye means novels storm tried
I have tried to celebrate the park, which means so much to so many of us, in The Eye of the Storm and in some of the shorter novels of The Cockatoos.
castle centre farther left moved reaching submerged suburbs
In 1964, submerged by the suburbs reaching farther into the country, we left Castle Hill, and moved into the centre of the city.
both calling college commitment education respect saint share students
St. Mary's and Wabash are in one important way very different. Wabash is a college for men; Saint Mary's, of course, a college for women. But both share a respect for students, a commitment to education of the whole person, and a calling of all students to greatness.
mind sometimes lost
If I have not lost my mind I can sometimes hear it preparing to defect
literature stories kind
She had begun to read in the beginning as a protection from the frightening and unpleasant things. She continued because, apart from the story, literature brought with it a kind of gentility for which she craved.
jealous past bed
I expect we are all jealous of the women in their past, but how much less exciting if the women had not kept the bed warm.