Limited Time Offer
Premium members can get their quote collection automatically imported into their Quotewise collections.
Possibly all art flowers more readily in silence. Certainly the state of simplicity and humility is the only desirable one for artist or for man. Whi… - Patrick White
" "Possibly all art flowers more readily in silence. Certainly the state of simplicity and humility is the only desirable one for artist or for man. While to reach it may be impossible, to attempt to do so is imperative. Stripped of almost everything that I had considered desirable and necessary, I began to try. Writing, which had meant the practice of an art by a polished mind in civilised surroundings, became a struggle to create completely fresh forms out of the rocks and sticks of words. I began to see things for the first time. Even the boredom and frustration presented avenues for endless exploration; even the ugliness, the bags and iron of Australian life, acquired a meaning. As for the cat's cradle of human intercourse, this was necessarily simplified, often bungled, sometimes touching. Its very tentativeness can be reward. There is always the possibility that the book lent, the record played, may lead to communication between human beings. There is the possibility that one may be helping to people a barely inhabited country with a race possessed of understanding. These, then, are some of the reasons why an expatriate has stayed, in the face of those disappointments which follow inevitably upon his return.
English
Collect this quote
About Patrick White
Patrick Victor Martindale White (28 May 1912 – 30 September 1990) was an Australian novelist and winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Biography information from Wikiquote
Also Known As
Birth Name:
Patrick Victor Martindale White
Alternative Names:
Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Patrick White
here was Dorothy, always knotted to the point of strangulation, aspiring to be what she was not, because of that parvenu prince. Mrs Hunter saw him: the groove in the lower lip, above the cleft chin, beneath the pink-shaded restaurant lights. She had ordered tournedos Lulu Watier. After the first shock of mutual disapproval, she felt that she and Hubert were enjoying each other. Alfred said, ‘Out with us, the food is plainer. We don’t feel the need to titillate our palates by dolling it up with a lot of seasoning and fancy sauces.’ He might have worsened the situation if she hadn’t kicked him under the table. They had gone over for the wedding because the old princess insisted she could not travel out to ce pays si lointain et inconnu. It was the first occasion the mountain hadn’t come to Elizabeth Hunter: she couldn’t very well believe it; nor that she would overlook the fact that her little Dorothy was being received into the Roman Catholic Church. But you did: at the nuptial mass there was your plain little girl in the dress by Lanvin tissé expres à la main à Lyon, and none of it could disguise the fact that you were prostituting your daughter to a prince, however desirably suave and hung with decorations. For one instant, out of the chanting and the incense, Elizabeth Hunter experienced a kind of spiritual gooseflesh.
Many of those who hear me believe I am putting on an act, while others who had considered I am one who surely knows the answers, are depressed to find that, by my own admission, I don't. What I do know for certain is that what is regarded as success in a rational materialistic society only impresses superficial minds. It amounts to nothing and will not help us rout the destructive forces threatening us today. What may be our salvation is the discovery of the identity hidden deep in any one of us, and which may be found in even the most desperate individual, if he cares to search the spiritual womb which contains the embryo of what can be one's personal contribution to truth and life.
Loading...