“In the 14th Century an anonymous English mystic wrote a book called The Cloud of Unknowing, the main theme of which is that God cannot be apprehended by man's intellect and that only love can pierce the "cloud of unknowing" which lies between Him and us. I feel that in my own life anything I have done of possible worth has happened in spite of my gross, worldly self. I have been no more than the vessel used to convey ideas above my intellectual capacities. When people praise passages I have written, more often than not I can genuinely say, 'Did I write that?' I don't think this is due to my having a bad memory, because I have almost total recall of trivialities. I see it as evidence of the part the supernatural plays in lives which would otherwise remain earthbound.”

— Patrick White

Australians in a Nuclear War (1983)

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Patrick White 22

English-born Australian writer 1912–1990

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Source: Sloppy Firsts

“I have the same idea with all my books: an attempt to come close to the core of reality, the structure of reality, as opposed to the merely superficial. The realistic novel is remote from art. A novel should heighten life, should give one an illuminating experience; it shouldn't set out what you know already. I just muddle away at it. One gets flashes here and there, which help. I am not a philosopher or an intellectual. Practically anything I have done of any worth I feel I have done through my intuition, not my mind - which the intellectuals disapprove of. And that is why I am anathema to certain kinds of Australian intellectual.”

Patrick White (1912–1990) English-born Australian writer

In The Making (1970)

“I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor -- such is my idea of happiness. And then, on the top of all that, you for a mate, and children perhaps -- what more can the heart of man desire?”

Leo Tolstoy book Family Happiness

Part 1, Chapter V
Family Happiness (1859)

“I did not kill that man. My God is aware of it. I am big enough to admit if I had done it, that admission would have been less of an ordeal and humiliation than this barbarous trial which no self respecting man can endure.”

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928–1979) Fourth President and ninth Prime Minister of Pakistan

Letter to his attorney, Yahya Bakhtiar, after his death sentence, as quoted in My Dearest Daughter : A letter from the Death Cell http://www.bhutto.org/Acrobat/Dearest_Daughter%5B1%5D.pdf (2007).
Context: I did not kill that man. My God is aware of it. I am big enough to admit if I had done it, that admission would have been less of an ordeal and humiliation than this barbarous trial which no self respecting man can endure. I am a Muslim. A Muslim's fate is in the hands of God Almighty I can face Him with a clear conscience and tell Him that I rebuilt His Islamic State of Pakistan from ashes into a respectable Nation. I am entirely at peace with my conscience in this black hole of Kot Lakhpat. I am not afraid of death. You have seen what fires I have passed through.

“I think journalism was the most important thing I could have done with my life. I just can't think of anything I could have done with my life that would have been more meaningful.”

John Seigenthaler (1927–2014) American journalist, writer, and political figure

Reported in his Tennessean's obituary; quoted in "John Seigenthaler dies at 86" http://www.poynter.org/2014/john-seigenthaler-dies-at-86/258597/ by Andrew Beaujon, poynter.org (11 July 2014)