I can only stick my neck out and offer my humble beliefs. If I become an outsider by doing so, this won't be a great hardship as I've been that as fa… - Patrick White

I always like to write three versions of a book. The first is always agony and chaos; no one could understand it. With the second you get the shape, it's more or less all right. I write both of those in longhand. The third draft I type out with two fingers: it's for refining of meaning, additions and subtractions. I think my novels usually begin with characters; you have them floating about in your head and it may be years before they get together in a situation. Characters interest me more than situations.

silence, simplicity and humility . . . the only proper state for the artist as for the human being,

For several hours we were thrown and battered — till suddenly calm felt — the calmest calm I have ever experienced at sea. God had willed us to enter the eye — you know about it? the still centre of the storm — where we lay at rest — surrounded by hundreds of seabirds, also resting on the water.