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Sometimes There Was A Serious Article On A Hot Topic, And I Especially Remember One By A Bishop Headed "is Nudity Salacious?" The Bishop Thought It Need Not Be, If Encountered In The Proper Spirit, But He Gave A Lot Of Enlightening Examples Of Conditions Under Which It Might Be, In His Word, "inflammatory." There Wasn't Much Nudity In Our Neck Of The Woods, And I Enjoyed That Article Tremendously.

-Robertson Davies

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Sometimes There Was A

Robertson Davies

...

Sometimes There Was A Serious Article On A Hot Topic, And I Especially Remember One By A Bishop Headed "is Nudity Salacious?" The Bishop Thought It Need Not Be, If Encountered In The Proper Spirit, But He Gave A Lot Of Enlightening Examples Of Conditions Under Which It Might Be, In His Word, "inflammatory." There Wasn't Much Nudity In Our Neck Of The Woods, And I Enjoyed That Article Tremendously.

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It Was As Though She Was An Exile From A World That Saw Things Her Way

Authors Like Cats Because They Are Such Quiet, Lovable, Wise Creatures, And Cats Like Authors For The Same Reasons.

What We Call Luck Is The Inner Man Externalized. We Make Things Happen To Us.

I Would Not For A Moment Have You Suppose That I Am One Of Those Idiots Who Scorns Science, Merely Because It Is Always Twisting And Turning, And Sometimes Shedding Its Skin, Like The Serpent That Is [the Doctors'] Symbol.

Are You Going To Be Just Kind Of A Walking Monument To A Job, Or Are You Going To Have Some Kind Of Really Significant Inner Life Of Your Own? Because The External Things The Job, The House, The This, The That Do Not Really Fill The Place Inside.

The Egotist Is All Surface; Underneath Is A Pulpy Mess And A Lot Of Self-doubt. But The Egoist May Be Yielding And Even Deferential In Things He Doesn't Consider Important; In Anything That Touches His Core He Is Remorseless.

Never Harbor Grudges; They Sour Your Stomach And Do No Harm To Anyone Else.

And Why Should It Not Be Terrifying? A Little Terror, In My View, Is Good For The Soul, When It Is Terror In The Face Of A Noble Object.

Happiness Is A By-product. It Is Not A Primary Product Of Life. It Is A Thing Which You Suddenly Realize You Have Because You're So Delighted To Be Doing Something Which Perhaps Has Nothing Whatever To Do With Happiness.

The First Principle, When You Don't Know Anything About The Subject Of A Thesis, Is To Let The Candidate Talk, Nodding Now And Then With An Ambiguous Smile. He Thinks You Know, And Are Counting His Mistakes, And It Unnerves Him... The Second Principle Of Conducting An Oral, ... Is To Pretend Ignorance, And Ask For Explanations Of Very Simple Points. Of Course Your Ignorance Is Real, But The Examinee Thinks You Are Being Subtle, And That He Is Making An Ass Of Himself, And This Rattles Him.

I Still Have Trouble Identifying Grammatical Structures By Name, Though I Know Them As Matters Of Usage.

Canada Has One Of The Highest Rates Of Insanity In Any Civilized Country And One Reason Might Be That Life In Many Places Is So Desperately Dull.

Love Affairs Are For Emotional Sprinters; The Pleasures Of Love Are For The Emotional Marathoners.

"children, Don't Speak So Coarsely," Said Mr Webster, Who Had A Vague Notion That Some Supervision Should Be Exercised Over His Daughters' Speech, And That A Line Should Be Drawn, But Never Knew Quite When To Draw It. He Had Allowed His Daughters To Use His Library Without Restraint, And Nothing Is More Fatal To Maidenly Delicacy Of Speech Than The Run Of A Good Library.

Art Is Always At Peril In Universities, Where There Are So Many People, Young And Old, Who Love Art Less Than Argument, And Dote Upon A Text That Provides The Nutritious Pemmican On Which Scholars Love To Chew.

As The Tragic Writer Rids Us Of What Is Petty And Ignoble In Our Nature, So Also The Humorist Rids Us Of What Is Cautious, Calculating, And Priggish--about Half Of Our Social Conscience, Indeed. Both Of Them Permit Us, In Blessed Moments Of Revelation, To Soar Above The Common Level Of Our Lives.

Let People Alone. Let Them Find Their Way. Let Them Find Their Level And You May Sometimes Be Delighted And Astonished At The Extraordinary High Level To Which They'll Rise If They're Let Alone.

Only In The Theatre Was It Possible To See The Performers And To Be Warmed By Their Personal Charm, To Respond To Their Efforts And To Feel Their Response To The Applause And Appreciative Laughter Of The Audience. It Had An Intimate Quality; Audience And Actors Conspired To Make A Little Oasis Of Happiness And Mirth Within The Walls Of The Theatre. Try As We Will, We Cannot Be Intimate With A Shadow On A Screen, Nor A Voice From A Box.

Happiness Is Always A By-product. It Is Probably A Matter Of Temperament, And For Anything I Know It May Be Glandular. But It Is Not Something That Can Be Demanded From Life, And If You Are Not Happy You Had Better Stop Worrying About It And See What Treasures You Can Pluck From Your Own Brand Of Unhappiness.

Canada, Having Few Indigenous Prejudices, Has Been Compelled To Import Them From Elsewhere, Duty-free, And It Is The Rare Canadian Who Is Not Shaken, At Some Time In The Year, By "old, Unhappy, Far-off Things / And Battles Long Ago", Like Wordsworth's Solitary Reaper. We Are A Nation Of Immigrants, And Not Happy In Our Minds.

It Is Lost, Lovely Child, Somewhere In The Ragbag That I Laughingly Refer To As My Memory.

Comparatively Few People Know What A Million Dollars Actually Is. To The Majority It Is A Gaseous Concept, Swelling Or Decreasing As The Occasion Suggests.

Many A Promising Career Has Been Wrecked By Marrying The Wrong Sort Of Woman.

I Was Afraid And Did Not Know What I Feared, Which Is The Worst Kind Of Fear.

But As A Skeptic I Am Dubious About Science As About Everything Else, Unless The Scientist Is Himself A Skeptic, And Few Of Them Are. The Stench Of Formaldehyde May Be As Potent As The Whiff Of Incense In Stimulating A Naturally Idolatrous Understanding.

It Used To Be Fashionable For Authors To Have Their Pictures Taken With Dogs, But The Dogs Always Looked Like Models Hired From An Advertising Agency, And Probably Were.

I Came At Last To A Recognition Of Myself As, In Part, A Tom Sawyer Who Wanted Everything Done According To The Rules Of Romantic Fiction, And Complicated Simple Solutions With His Absurd Adolescent, Book-born Nonsense.

The Clerisy Are Those Who Read For Pleasure, But Not For Idleness; Who Read For Pastime But Not To Kill Time; Who Love Books, But Do Not Live By Books

It Is In This Matter That I Fall Foul Of So Many American Writers On Writing; They Seem To Think That Writing Is A Confidence Game By Means Of Which The Author Cajoles A Restless, Dull-witted, Shallow Audience Into Hearing His Point Of View. Such An Attitude Is Base, And Can Only Beget Base Prose.

The Greatest Gift That Oxford Gives Her Sons Is, I Truly Believe, A Genial Irreverence Toward Learning, And From That Irreverence Love May Spring.

To Instruct Calls For Energy, And To Remain Almost Silent, But Watchful And Helpful, While Students Instruct Themselves, Calls For Even Greater Energy. To See Someone Fall (which Will Teach Him Not To Fall Again) When A Word From You Would Keep Him On His Feet But Ignorant Of An Important Danger, Is One Of The Tasks Of The Teacher That Calls For Special Energy, Because Holding In Is More Demanding Than Crying Out.

The Victorians Have Been Immoderately Praised, And Immoderately Blamed, And Surely It Is Time We Formed Some Reasonable Picture Of Them? There Was Their Courageous, Intellectually Adventurous Side, Their Greedy And Inhuman Side, Their Superbly Poetic Side, Their Morally Pretentious Side, Their Tea And Buttered Toast Side, And Their Champagne And Skittles Side. Much Like Ourselves, In Fact, Though Rather Dirtier.

Only A Fool Expects To Be Happy All The Time.

Money, It Is Often Said, Does Not Bring Happiness; It Must Be Added, However, That It Makes It Possible To Support Unhappiness With Exemplary Fortitude.

Boredom And Stupidity And Patriotism, Especially When Combined, Are Three Of The Greatest Evils Of The World We Live In.

If You Don't Hurry Up And Let Life Know What You Want, Life Will Damned Soon Show You What You'll Get.

A Library Goes On As Far As Thought Can Reach.

"there Is No Disputing About Tastes," Says The Old Saw. In My Experience There Is Little Else.

The People Of The United States, Perhaps More Than Any Other Nation In History, Love To Abase Themselves And Proclaim Their Unworthiness, And Seem To Find Refreshment In Doing So... That Is A Dark Frivolity, But Still Frivolity.

One Can Always Tell It's Summer When One Sees School Teachers Hanging About The Streets Idly, Looking Like Cannibals During A Shortage Of Missionaries.

Women Say . . . That If Men Had To Have Babies There Would Soon Be No Babies In The World. . . . I Have Sometimes Wished That Some Clever Man Would Actually Have A Baby In Some New Labor-saving Way; Then All Men Could Take It Up, And One Of The Oldest Taunts In The World Would Be Stilled Forever.

In India It Is Regarded As A Good Idea To Dart In Front Of An Oncoming Car, For The Car Is Sure To Kill The Evil Spirits Who Are Pursuing You, And All The Rest Of Your Life You Will Have Good Luck.

In My Collection, To Me At Least, The Theatre Of The Past Lives Again And Those Long-dead Playwrights And Actors Have In Me An Enthralled Audience Of One, And I Applaud Them Across The Centuries.

Audience Of One

Pessimism Is A Very Easy Way Out Because It Is A Short View Of Life. If You Look At What Is Happening Around Us Today, You Can't Help But Feel That Life Is A Terrible Complexity Of Problems. But If You Look Back A Few Thousand Years, You Realize That We Have Advanced Fantastically. If You Take A Long View, I Do Not See How You Can Be Pessimistic About The Future Of Mankind.

To Be Apt In Quotation Is A Splendid And Dangerous Gift. Splendid, Because It Ornaments A Man's Speech With Other Men's Jewels; Dangerous, For The Same Reason.

Although There May Be Nothing New Under The Sun, What Is Old Is New To Us And So Rich And Astonishing That We Never Tire Of It. If We Do Tire Of It, If We Lose Our Curiosity, We Have Lost Something Of Infinite Value, Because To A High Degree It Is Curiosity That Gives Meaning And Savour To Life.

The Whole World Is Burdened With Young Fogies. Old Men With Ossified Minds Are Easily Dealt With. But Men Who Look Young, Act Young, And Everlastingly Harp On The Fact They Are Young, But Who Nevertheless Think And Act With A Degree Of Caution Which Would Be Excessive In Their Grandfathers, Are The Curses Of The World.

Clarity Is Not A Characteristic Of The Human Spirit.

Characteristics

If You're Going To Do Something That Looks Evil, Don't Smear It With Icing And Pretend It's Good; Just Bloody Well Do It And Keep Your Eyes Peeled.

In Too Many Modern Churches There Is No Emphasis On Theology At All. There Is A Kind Of Justification By Works Or By Keeping Up With Modern Trends Anything That Will Drag In A Few More People.

Be Sure To Choose What You Believe And Why You Believe It, Because If You Don't Choose Your Beliefs, You May Be Certain That Some Belief, And Probably Not A Very Credible One, Will Choose You.

Very Few [doctors] Are Men Of Science In Any Very Serious Sense; They're Men Of Technique.

Their Very Conservatism Is Secondhand, And They Don't Know What They Are Conserving.

That's The Nub Of The Thing, You See Seriousness Of Spirit. It Doesn't Mean Heaviness Of Heart, Or A Lack Of Fantasy, But It Does Mean An Awareness Of Influences That Touch Our Lives, Sometimes In Ways That Seem Cruel And Unfeeling, And Sometimes In Ways That Open Up A Glory Which Can Never Be Forgotten.

Tristan And Isolde Were Lucky To Die When They Did. They'd Have Been Sick Of All That Rubbish In A Year.

The Attributes Of God Have Been Carefully Explored. But The Devil's Attributes Have Been Left Vague. I Think I've Found One Of Them. It Is He Who Puts The Prices On Things." "doesn't God Put A Price On Things?" "no. One Of His Attributes Is Magnanimity. But The Devil Is A Setter Of Prices, And A Usurer, As Well. You Buy From Him At An Agreed Price, But The Payments Are All On Time, And The Interest Is Charged On The Whole Of The Principal, Right Up To The Last Payment, However Much Of The Principal You Think You Have Paid Off In The Meantime.

The Best Among Our Writers Are Doing Their Accustomed Work Of Mirroring What Is Deep In The Spirit Of Our Time; If Chaos Appears In Those Mirrors, We Must Have Faith That In The Future, As Always In The Past, That Chaos Will Slowly Reveal Itself As A New Aspect Of Order.

Pornography Is Rather Like Trying To Find Out About A Beethoven Symphony By Having Somebody Tell You About It And Perhaps Hum A Few Bars.

Do Not Suppose, However, That I Intend To Urge A Diet Of Classics On Anybody. I Have Seen Such Diets At Work. I Have Known People Who Have Actually Read All, Or Almost All, The Guaranteed Hundred Best Books. God Save Us From Reading Nothing But The Best.

I See Canada As A Country Torn Between A Very Northern, Rather Extraordinary, Mystical Spirit Which It Fears And Its Desire To Present Itself To The World As A Scotch Banker.

She Has Been Kissed As Often As A Police-court Bible, And By Much The Same Class Of People.

In The End, It Is Upon The Quality And Commitment Of Individuals That All Group Movements Depend.

Humour Very Often Consists Of Shrewd Perceptions About People. It's Usually Fun At Someone's Expense. Nowadays If You're Funny At Anybody's Expense They Run To The Un And Say, "i Must Have An Ombudsman To Protect Me." You Hardly Dare Have A Shrewd Perception About Anybody.

I Just Am A Canadian. It Is Not A Thing Which You Can Escape From. It Is Like Having Blue Eyes

May I Make A Suggestion, Hoping It Is Not An Impertinence? Write It Down: Write Down What You Feel. It Is Sometimes A Wonderful Help In Misery.

Here Are Some Homosexuals Whom We Would Do Well To Take Seriously.

The Eye Sees Only What The Mind Is Prepared To Comprehend.

If We Seek The Pleasures Of Love, Passion Should Be Occasional, And Common Sense Continual.

Literary Critics, However, Frequently Suffer From A Curious Belief That Every Author Longs To Extend The Boundaries Of Literary Art, Wants To Explore New Dimensions Of The Human Spirit, And If He Doesn't, He Should Be Ashamed Of Himself.

Celtic Civilization Was Tribal, But By No Means Savage Or Uncultivated. People Who Regarded The Theft Of A Harp From A Bard As A Crime Second Only To An Attack On The Tribal Chieftain Cannot Be Regarded As Wanting In Cultivated Feeling.

We Live In A World Where Bulk Is Equated With Quality.

When One Is Traveling, One Must Expect To Spend A Certain Amount Of Money Foolishly.

These Matters Require What I Think Of As The Shakespearean Cast Of Thought. That Is To Say, A Fine Credulity About Everything, Kept In Check By A Lively Skepticism About Everything.... It Keeps You Constantly Alert To Every Possibility.

I Don't Suppose God Laughs At The People Who Think He Doesn't Exist. He's Above Jokes. But The Devil Isn't. That's One Of His Most Endearing Qualities.

The Reclusive Man Who Marries The Gregarious Woman, The Timid Woman Who Marries The Courageous Man, The Idealist Who Marries The Realist We Can All See These Unions: The Marriages In Which Tenderness Meets Loyalty, Where Generosity Sweetens Moroseness, Where A Sense Of Beauty Eases Some Aridity Of The Spirit, Are Not So Easy For Outsiders To Recognize; The Parties Themselves May Not Be Fully Aware Of Such Elements In A Good Match.

Did You Know That Puritanism Went Hand In Hand With Dirt, That Oliver Cromwell Put A 100 Per Cent Tax On Soap And That The Repeal Of The Soap Tax Was One Of The Most Popular Acts Of Charles Ii At His Restoration?

All Real Fantasy Is Serious. Only Faked Fantasy Is Not Serious. That Is Why It Is So Wrong To Impose Faked Fantasy On Children.

Real Bibliophiles Do Not Put Their Books On Shelves For People To Look At Or Handle. They Have No Desire To Show Off Their Darlings, Or To Amaze People With Their Possessions. They Keep Their Prized Books Hidden Away In A Secret Spot To Which They Resort Stealthily, Like A Caliph Visiting His Harem, Or A Church Elder Sneaking Into A Bar. To Be A Book Collector Is To Combine The Worst Characteristics Of A Dope-fiend With Those Of A Miser.

No One Needs A Word Processor If He Has An Efficient Secretary.

Whether You Are Really Right Or Not Doesn't Matter; It's The Belief That Counts.

The Women We Really Love Are The Women Who Complete Us, Who Have The Qualities We Can Borrow And So Become Something Nearer To Whole Men. Just As We Complete Them, Of Course; It’s Not A One-way Thing. Leola And I, When Romance Was Stripped Away, Were Too Much Alike; Our Strengths And Weaknesses Were Too Nearly The Same. Together We Would Have Doubled Our Gains And Our Losses, But That Isn’t What Love Is.

A Man Who Recognizes No God Is Probably Placing An Inordinate Value On Himself.

Marriage Is A Framework To Preserve Friendship. It Is Valuable Because It Gives Much More Room To Develop Than Just Living Together. It Provides A Base From Which A Person Can Work At Understanding Himself And Another Person.

You're All Mad For Words. Words Are Just Farts From A Lot Of Fools Who Have Swallowed Too Many Books. Give Me Things!

The World Is Full Of People Whose Notion Of A Satisfactory Future Is, In Fact, A Return To The Idealized Past.

We Mistrust Anything That Too Strongly Challenges Our Ideal Of Mediocrity.

Every Man Makes His Own Summer. The Season Has No Character Of Its Own, Unless One Is A Farmer With A Professional Concern For The Weather.

Art Is Wine And Experience Is The Brandy We Distill From It.

Aristocrats Need Not Be Rich, But They Must Be Free, And In The Modern World Freedom Grows Rarer The More We Prate About It.

The Great Book For You Is The Book That Has The Most To Say To You At The Moment When You Are Reading. I Do Not Mean The Book That Is Most Instructive, But The Book That Feeds Your Spirit. And That Depends On Your Age, Your Experience, Your Psychological And Spiritual Need.

Imagination Is A Good Horse To Carry You Over The Ground - Not A Flying Carpet To Set You Free From Probability.

My Curiosity Was In No Way Cruel. Deviations From The Commonplace Attracted Me Strongly, As They Still Do; And To Me The Hermaphrodite And The Living Skeleton Were Interesting For The Same Reason As Was Creatore, Or The Resplendent Guardsmen Of The Bands - Because Such People Did Not Often Come My Way, And I Hoped That They Might Impart Some Great Revelation To Me, Some Insight Which Would Help Me To A Clearer Understanding Of The World About Me.

There Is More To Marriage Than Four Bare Legs Under A Blanket.

Though Thousands Of People Indulge Themselves In It Regularly, And Even Develop A Taste For It, There Is No Doubt In My Mind (and That Of Scientists Whom I Employ To Prove It) That Work Is A Dangerous And Destructive Drug, And Should Be Called By Its Right Name, Which Is Fatigue.

The Pleasures Of Love Are For Those Who Are Hopelessly Addicted To Another Living Creature. The Reasons For Such Addiction Are So Many That I Suspect They Are Never The Same In Any Two Cases. It Includes Passion But Does Not Survive By Passion; It Has Its Whiffs Of The Agreeable Vertigo Of Young Love, But It Is Stable More Often Than Dizzy; It Is A Growing, Changing Thing, And It Is Tactful Enough To Give The Addicted Parties Occasional Rests From Strong And Exhausting Feeling Of Any Kind.

The Inert Mind Is A Greater Danger Than The Inert Body, For It Overlays And Stifles The Desire To Live.

Several Children Present Me With Scraps Of Paper For Autographs: Obviously Don't Know Who I Am And Don't Care. I Sign "jackie Collins" And They Go Away Quite Content.

If I Had My Way Books Would Not Be Written In English, But In An Exceedingly Difficult Secret Language That Only Skilled Professional Readers And Story-tellers Could Interpret. Then People Would Have To Go To Public Halls And Pay Good Prices To Hear. . .

Nothing Grows Old-fashioned So Fast As Modernity.

Female Beauty Is An Important Minor Sacrament Which Cannot Be Received Too Often; I Am Not At All Sure That Neglect Of It Does Not Constitute A Sin Of Some Kind.

I Think We're Living In An Age Which Despises Humanity And Despises Bravery And Doesn't Need Bravery Because Modern Warfare Has Rather Gone Beyond Bravery. It Is A Kind Of Warfare Where People Are Fighting Enemies They Never See, Killing People Of Whom They Know Nothing.

Inactivity And Deprivation Of All Accustomed Stimulus Is Not Rest; It Is A Preparation For The Tomb

I Do Not 'get' Ideas; Ideas Get Me

If You Are Not Happy You Had Better Stop Worrying About It And See What Treasures You Can Pluck From Your Own Brand Of Unhappiness.

This Is One Of The Cruelties Of The Theatre Of Life; We All Think Of Ourselves As Stars And Rarely Recognize It When We Are Indeed Mere Supporting Characters Or Even Supernumeraries.

If A Man Wants To Be Of The Greatest Possible Value To His Fellow-creature S Let Him Begin The Long, Solitary Task Of Perfecting Himself.

All Art Is Holy. Not That It Is All Long-faced And Miserable; It Can Be Wild And Wooly. But If It Transforms You, It Is Art. And It Is Holy.

It Is Those Pent-up, Craving Children Who Make All The Wars And All The Horrors And All The Art And All The Beauty And Discovery In Life, Because They Are Trying To Achieve What Lay Beyond Their Grasp Before They Were Five Years Old.

The Wit Of A Graduate Student Is Like Champagne. Canadian Champagne.

This Is The Great Theatre Of Life. Admission Is Free, But The Taxation Is Mortal. You Come When You Can, And Leave When You Must. The Show Is Continuous. Goodnight.

Moderation, The Golden Mean, The Aristonmetron, Is The Secret Of Wisdom And Of Happiness. But It Does Not Mean Embracing An Unadventurous Mediocrity; Rather It Is An Elaborate Balancing Act, A Feat Of Intellectual Skill Demanding Constant Vigilance. Its Aim Is A Reconciliation Of Opposites.

Fiction Is Not Photography, It's Oil Painting.

You Would Not Serve Junk Food At A Banquet, And Your Book Must Be A Banquet. Get Your Language From Swift, Not From Shopsy's.

The Dog Is A Yes-animal. Very Popular With People Who Can't Afford A Yes Man.

Speakers' Nerves Affect Them In Various Ways. Some Tremble, Some Become Frenzied. I Lose All Confidence, And Suffer From A Leaden Oppression That Makes Me Wonder Why I Ever Agreed To Speak At All; The Tomb And The Conqueror Worm Seem Preferable To Delivering The Stupid And Piffling Speech I Have So Carefully Prepared.

That Was What Stuck In The Craws Of All The Good Women Of Deptford: Mrs Dempster Had Not Been Raped, As A Decent Woman Would Have Been-no, She Had Yielded Because A Man Wanted Her. The Subject Was Not One That Could Be Freely Discussed Even Among Intimates, But It Was Understood Without Saying That If Women Began To Yield For Such Reasons As That, Marriage And Society Would Not Last Long. Any Man Who Spoke Up For Mrs Dempster Probably Believed In Free Love. Certainly He Associated Sex With Pleasure, And That Put Him In A Class With Filthy Thinkers Like Cece Athelstan.

Comparatively Few People Know What A Million Dollars Actually Is. To The Majority It Is A Gaseous Concept, Swelling Or Decreasing As The Occasion Suggests. In The Minds Of Politicians, Perhaps More Than Anywhere, The Notion Of A Million Dollars Has This Accordion-like Ability To Expand Or Contract; If They Are Disposing Of It, The Million Is A Pleasing Sum, Reflecting Warmly Upon Themselves; If Somebody Else Wants It, It Becomes A Figure Of Inordinate Size, Not To Be Compassed By The Rational Mind.

The Truth Is That Art Does Not Teach; It Makes You Feel, And Any Teaching That May Arise From The Feeling Is An Extra, And Must Not Be Stressed Too Much. In The Modern World, And In Canada As Much As Anywhere, We Are Obsessed With The Notion That To Think Is The Highest Achievement Of Mankind, But We Neglect The Fact That Thought Untouched By Feeling Is Thin, Delusive, Treacherous Stuff.

They [say] Everybody's Creative. Well, Everybody Is. But Any Real Creativity Has To Rest On A Basis Of An Acquired Technique And An Acquired Knowledge; You Can't Be Creative In A Void, Or You Just Get A Mess.

In My Experience Tact Is Usually Worse Than The Brutalities Of Truth.

One Of The Things That Puzzles Me Is That So Few People Want To Look At Life As A Totality And To Recognize That Death Is No More Extraordinary Than Birth. When They Say It's The End Of Everything They Don't Seem To Recognize That We Came From Somewhere And It Would Be Very, Very Strange Indeed To Suppose That We're Not Going Somewhere.

To Be A Book-collector Is To Combine The Worst Characteristics Of A Dope Fiend With Those Of A Miser.

The Little Boy Nodded At The Peony And The Peony Seemed To Nod Back. The Little Boy Was Neat, Clean And Pretty. The Peony Was Unchaste, Dishevelled As Peonies Must Be, And At The Height Of Its Beauty.(...) Every Hour Is Filled With Such Moments, Big With Significance For Someone.

Many Authors Write Like Amateur Blacksmiths Making Their First Horseshoe; The Clank Of The Anvil, The Stench Of The Scorched Leather Apron, The Sparks And The Cursing Are Palpable, And This Appeals To Those Who Rank "sincerity" Very High. Nabokov Is More Like A Master Swordsmith Making A Fine Blade; Nothing Is Amiss, Nothing Is Too Much, There Is No Fuss, And The Finished Product Must Be Handled With Great Care, Or It Will Cut You Badly.

A Truly Great Book Should Be Read In Youth, Again In Maturity And Once More In Old Age, As A Fine Building Should Be Seen By Morning Light, At Noon And By Moonlight.

Happiness Is Always A By-product. It Is Probably A Matter Of Temperament, And For Anything I Know It May Be Glandular.

Everything Matters. The Universe Is Approximately Fifteen Billion Years Old, And I Swear That In All That Time, Nothing Has Ever Happened That Has Not Mattered, Has Not Contributed In Some Way To The Totality.

The Young Are Often Accused Of Exaggerating Their Troubles; They Do So, Very Often, In The Hope Of Making Some Impression Upon The Inertia And The Immovability Of The Selfish Old.

Secrets Are The Blood Of Life. Every Big Thing Is A Secret, Even When You Know It, Because You Never Know All Of It. If You Can Know Everything About Anything, It Is Not Worth Knowing.

If You Attack Stupidity You Attack An Entrenched Interest With Friends In Government And Every Walk Of Public Life.

I Do Not Really Like Vacations. I Much Prefer An Occasional Day Off When I Do Not Feel Like Working. When I Am Confronted With A Whole Week In Which I Have Nothing To Do But Enjoy Myself I Do Not Know Where To Begin. To Me, Enjoyment Comes Fleetingly And Unheralded; I Cannot Determinedly Enjoy Myself For A Whole Week At A Time.

I Don't Think I Would Ever Write A Book With What Anybody Could Call Pornography In It, Because I Feel That Pornography Is A Cheat. It Is An Attempt To Provide Sexual Experience By Secondhand Means. Now Sex Is A Thing Which Has To Be Experienced Firsthand, If You Are Really Going To Understand It, And Pornography Is Rather Like Trying To Find Out About A Beethoven Symphony By Having Somebody Tell You About It And Perhaps Hum A Few Bars. It's Not The Same Thing. Sex Is Primarily A Question Of Relationships. Pornography Is A Do-it-yourself Kit--a Twenty-second Best.

Childhood May Have Periods Of Great Happiness, But It Also Has Times That Must Simply Be Endured. Childhood At Its Best Is A Form Of Slavery Tempered By Affection.

I Was Not Sure I Wanted To Issue Orders To Life; I Rather Liked The Greek Notion Of Allowing Chance To Take A Formative Hand In My Affairs.

Every Man Is Wise When Attacked By A Mad Dog; Fewer When Pursued By A Mad Woman; Only The Wisest Survive When Attacked By A Mad Notion.

A Man Must Be Obedient To The Promptings Of His Innermost Heart.

I Cannot Imagine Any Boy Of Spirit Who Would Not Be Delighted To Play A Drunkard Even To Vomiting In Front Of His Sunday School. Indeed, The Vomiting Might Be The Chief Attraction Of The Role.

The Ideal Companion In Bed Is A Good Book.

Sometimes There Was A Serious Article On A Hot Topic, And I Especially Remember One By A Bishop Headed "is Nudity Salacious?" The Bishop Thought It Need Not Be, If Encountered In The Proper Spirit, But He Gave A Lot Of Enlightening Examples Of Conditions Under Which It Might Be, In His Word, "inflammatory." There Wasn't Much Nudity In Our Neck Of The Woods, And I Enjoyed That Article Tremendously.

Conversation In Its True Meaning Isn't All Wagging The Tongue; Sometimes It Is A Deeply Shared Silence.

There Are Times When I Think That The Reading I Have Done In The Past Has Had No Effect Except To Cloud My Mind And Make Me Indecisive

Oh Hearts! Nobody Gets Through Life Without A Broken Heart. The Important Thing Is To Break The Heart So That When It Mends It Will Be Stronger Than Before.

One Learns One’s Mystery At The Price Of One’s Innocence.

Some Countries You Love. Some Countries You Hate. Canada Is A Country You Worry About.

A Happy Childhood Has Spoiled Many A Promising Life.

There Can Be No Doubt That Samuel Marchbanks Is One Of The Choice And Master Spirits Of This Age. If There Were Such A Volume As Who Really Ought To Be Who His Entry Would Require Several Pages.

Although I Am Almost Illiterate Mathematically, I Grasped Very Early In Life That Any One Who Can Count To Ten Can Count Upward Indefinitely If He Is Fool Enough To Do So.

It Seemed To Me As If The Stones Sang, In The Strangest Voices, In The Language Of Ultima Thule.

People Are Not Saints Just Because They Haven't Got Much Money Or Education.

If I Had To Describe My Remarks This Evening Frankly As If I Were In Police Court And On Oath, So To Speak I Should Have To Call It A Ramble Over Several Subjects, Portions Of Which May Seem To You To Be Impudent, And Portions Of Which Will Be Ignorant, And Portions Of Which May Contrive To Be Both At Once.

The Division Between Art And Deviousness And Crime Is Sometimes As Thin As A Cigarette Paper.

Women Always Think That If They Tell A Man Not To Be Pompous That Will Shut Him Up, But I Am An Old Hand At That Game. I Know That If A Man Bides His Time His Moment Will Come.

The Problem For A Paracelsian Physician Like Me Is That I See Diseases As Disguises In Which People Present Me With Their Wretchedness.

The Alexander Technique Keeps The Body Alive, At Ages When Many People Have Resigned Themselves To Irreversible Decline.

I Think A Lot Of People Have Unreasonable Expectations Because They Never Stop To Consider What Life Actually Has To Offer Them. They're Always Looking For Some Great Epiphany From The Skies. They Never Stop To Consider The Fact Which Human Beings Find Hardest To Recognize: "maybe I'm Not Worthy Of An Epiphany.

No People In The World Can Make You Feel So Small As The English.

Very Often When I Am Introduced To Women, I Think, What Is She Really Like Behind The Disguise Which She Wears? And Very Often I Discover That She Is Pleasant Enough, And Probably Would Expand And Glow If She Received Enough Affection.

The Critic Is The Duenna In The Passionate Affair Between Playwrights, Actors And Audiences - A Figure Dreaded, And Occasionally Comic, But Never Welcome, Never Loved.

I Am Quite A Wise Old Bird, But I Am No Desert Hermit Who Can Only Prophesy When His Guts Are Knotted With Hunger. I Am Deep In The Old Man’s Puzzle, Trying To Link The Wisdom Of The Body With The Wisdom Of The Spirit Until The Two Are One.

He Types His Labored Column - Weary Drudge! Senile Fudge And Solemn: Spare, Editor, To Condemn These Dry Leaves Of His Autumn.

The Pleasures Of Love Are For Those Who Are Hopelessly Addicted To Another Living Creature.

Living Creatures

Few People Can See Genius In Someone Who Has Offended Them.

Canada Is Not Really A Place Where You Are Encouraged To Have Large Spiritual Adventures.

The Drama May Be Called That Part Of Theatrical Art Which Lends Itself Most Readily To Intellectual Discussion: What Is Left Is Theater.

I Am Constantly Astonished By The People, Otherwise Intelligent, Who Think That Anything So Complex And Delicate As A Marriage Can Be Left To Take Care Of Itself. One Sees Them Fussing About All Sorts Of Lesser Concerns, Apparently Unaware That Side By Side With Them Often In The Same Bed A Human Creature Is Perishing From Lack Of Affection, Of Emotional Malnutrition.

I Have No Skills With Machines. I Fear Them, And Because I Cannot Help Attributing Human Qualities To Them, I Suspect That They Hate Me And Will Kill Me If They Can.

To Ask An Author Who Hopes To Be A Serious Writer If His Work Is Autobiographical Is Like Asking A Spider Where He Buys His Thread. The Spider Gets His Thread Right Out Of His Own Guts, And That Is Where The Author Gets His Writing.

The Clerisy Are Those Who Seek, And Find, Delight And Enlargement Of Life In Books. The Clerisy Are Those For Whom Reading Is A Personal Art.

The Bible Takes Much Of Its Color From Whoever Is Reading It, And It Provides A Text To Support Almost Every Shade Of Opinion, However Preposterous.

It Is Odd How All Men Develop The Notion, As They Grow Older, That Their Mothers Were Wonderful Cooks. I Have Yet To Meet A Man Who Will Admit That His Mother Was A Kitchen Assassin And Nearly Poisoned Him.

A Librettist Is A Mere Drudge In The World Of Opera.

That Is The Operatic Problem; The Singer Must Keep Up A Big Head Of Steam While Trying To Appear Secretive, Or Seductive, Or Consumptive. Some Ingenious Composer Should Write An Opera About A Group Of People Who Were Condemned By A Cruel God To Scream All The Time; It Would Be An Instantaneous Success, And A Triumph Of Versimilitude.

Anybody Who Has Had Experience Of Poetesses Knows That They May Forgive A Punch On The Jaw, But Never A Suggestion That They Would Be Wiser To Give Up Versifying.

Great Drama, Drama That May Reach The Alchemical Level, Must Have Dimension And Its Relevance Will Take Care Of Itself. Writing About Aids Rather Than The Cocktail Set, Or Possibly The Fairy Kingdom, Will Not Guarantee Importance. . . . The Old Comment That All Periods Of Time Are At An Equal Distance From Eternity Says Much, And Pondering On It Will Lead To Alchemical Theatre While Relevance Becomes Old Hat.

If I Had My Way Books Would Not Be Written In English But In An Exceedingly Difficult Secret Language.... This Plan Would Have The Advantage Of Scaring Off All Amateur Authors, Retired Politicians, Country Doctors...who Would Not Have The Patience To Learn The Secret Language.

Students Today Are A Pretty Solemn Lot. One Of The Really Notable Achievements Of The Twentieth Century Has Been To Make The Young Old Before Their Time.

Canada Was Settled, In The Main, By People With A Lower Middle-class Outlook, And A Respect, Rather Than An Affectionate Familiarity, For The Things Of The Mind.

The Book Forces Itself Into My Mind When I Am Lugging Furniture, Or Pulling Weeds.

A Boy Is A Man In Miniature, And Though He May Sometimes Exhibit Notable Virtue, As Well As Characteristics That Seem To Be Charming Because They Are Childlike, He Is Also A Schemer, Self-seeker, Traitor, Judas, Crook, And Villain - In Short, A Man.

The Love Of Truth Lies At The Root Of Much Humor.

Book Lovers Are Thought By Unbookish People To Be Gentle And Unworldly, And Perhaps A Few Of Them Are So. But There Are Others Who Will Lie And Scheme And Steal To Get Books As Wildly And Unconscionably As The Dope-taker In Pursuit Of His Drug. They May Not Want The Books To Read Immediately, Or At All; They Want Them To Possess, To Range On Their Shelves, To Have At Command. They Want Books As A Turk Is Thought To Want Concubines - Not To Be Hastily Deflowered, But To Be Kept At Their Master's Call, And Enjoyed More Often In Thought Than In Reality.

I Never Heard Of Anyone Who Was Really Literate Or Who Ever Really Loved Books Who Wanted To Suppress Any Of Them.

The Average Politician Goes Through A Sentence Like A Man Exploring A Disused Mine Shaft-blind, Groping, Timorous And In Imminent Danger Of Cracking His Shins On A Subordinate Clause Or A Nasty Bit Of Subjunctive.

I Think We Should See Whether We Are Wise Trying To Educate Everybody To A High Standard The Way We Are Trying To Do Now. There Has To Be A High Level Of Education So Everybody Is Literate, But Whether University Education Is Necessary For Everyone Is Open To Question.

The Us, For Historical Reasons, Mistrusts The Concept Of A Welfare State, And This Mistrust Shows Itself Nakedly Under Present Us Government, Which Commits Uncounted Billions Of The National Wealth To What It Calls Defence, And Is Close-fisted In Giving Money To Plans Which Would Ameliorate The Grinding Poverty Of A Great Part Of Its People. Quite Simply, In Canada You Could Not Get Away With That.

A Big Man Is Always Accused Of Gluttony, Whereas A Wizened Or Osseous Man Can Eat Like A Refugee At Every Meal, And No One Ever Notices His Greed.

It Is Not Always Easy To Diagnose. The Simplest Form Of Stupidity - The Mumbling, Nose-picking, Stolid Incomprehension - Can Be Detected By Anyone. But The Stupidity Which Disguises Itself As Thought, And Which Talks So Glibly And Eloquently, Indeed Never Stops Talking, In Every Walk Of Life Is Not So Easy To Identify, Because It Marches Under A Formidable Name, Which Few Dare Attack. It Is Called Popular Opinion.

I Think Of The Author As Somebody Who Goes Into The Marketplace And Puts Down His Rug And Says, 'i Will Tell You A Story' And Then He Passes The Hat.

The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name Has Become The Love That Won't Shut Up.

A Great Many Complimentary Things Have Been Said About The Faculty Of Memory, And If You Look In A Good Quotation Book You Will Find Them Neatly Arranged.

The People Who Fear Humor - And They Are Many - Are Suspicious Of Its Power To Present Things In Unexpected Lights, To Question Received Opinions And To Suggest Unforeseen Possibilities.

Of Course, Fairies Are All Imported In North America. We Have No Native Fairies. The Little People Do Not Long Survive Importation Unless They Go To California And Grow Large And Beautiful, But Haven't Much Flavour, Like The Fruit And The Film Stars.

Energy And Curiosity Are The Lifeblood Of Universities; The Desire To Find Out, To Uncover, To Dig Deeper, To Puzzle Out Obscurities, Is The Spirit Of The University, And It Is A Channelling Of That Unresting Curiosity That Holds Mankind Together.

On The Whole, We Treat The Devil Shamefully, And The Worse We Treat Him The More He Laughs At Us.

When A Man Is Down On His Luck He Seems To Consume All He Can Get Of Coffee And Doughnuts.

Women Tell Men Things That Men Are Not Very Likely To Find Out For Themselves.

It Is A Waste Of Time To Dissipate One's Moral Zeal In Disapproving Of Royal Persons Who Have Mistresses.

No, It's The Musicians And I Must Say They Are An Accomplished Bunch, But Odd, As Musicians Tend To Be. Is It The Vibration From Their Instruments, Do You Suppose, Working On The Brain? All That Fraught Buzzing?

Extraordinary People Survive Under The Most Terrible Circumstances And They Become More Extraordinary Because Of It.

Ordinary Extraordinary

I Never Heard Of Anyone Who Was Really Literate Or Who Ever Really Loved Books Who Wanted To Suppress Any Of Them. Censors Only Read A Book With Great Difficulty, Moving Their Lips As They Puzzle Out Each Syllable, When Someone Tells Them That The Book Is Unfit To Read.

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