Background Image
...
The Pleasures Of Love Are For Those Who Are Hopelessly Addicted To Another Living Creature.
-Robertson Davies
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

The Pleasures Of Love

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

Understanding the Quote: "the pleasures of love are for those who are hopelessly addicted to..."

This quote by Robertson Davies reflects deeply on the theme of pleasure. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Pleasure, Creatures, Living Creatures, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Robertson Davies interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Robertson Davies

Robertson Davies is celebrated for insightful thoughts on pleasure and creatures. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 6
Topic
Pleasure
Creatures
Living Creatures
More From Robertson Davies
Art Is Wine And Experience Is The Brandy We Distill From It.
Art
Wine
Alcohol
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.
People
Levels
May
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.
Book
Simple
Fiction
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.
Laughter
Wall
Voice
The Great Charm Of Cats Is Their Rampant Egotism, Their Devil-may-care Attitude Toward Responsibility, Their Disinclination To Earn An Honest Dollar.
Attitude
Cat
Responsibility
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.
Class
People
Mind
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.
Men
Average
Nasty
Clarity Is Not A Characteristic Of The Human Spirit.
Spirit
Clarity
Characteristics
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.
Selfish
Trouble
Young
I Object To Being Told That I Am Saving Daylight When My Reason Tells Me That I Am Doing Nothing Of The Kind... At The Back Of The Daylight Saving Scheme I Detect The Bony, Blue-fingered Hand Of Puritanism, Eager To Push People Into Bed Earlier, And Get Them Up Earlier, To Make Them Healthy, Wealthy And Wise In Spite Of Themselves.
Wise
Blue
Hands
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.
Eye
Evil
Looks
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.
People
Would Be
Looks
Never Harbor Grudges; They Sour Your Stomach And Do No Harm To Anyone Else.
Inspirational
Grudge
Harm
I Just Am A Canadian. It Is Not A Thing Which You Can Escape From. It Is Like Having Blue Eyes
Eye
Blue
Blue Eyes
In My Experience Tact Is Usually Worse Than The Brutalities Of Truth.
Brutality
Tact
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.
Art
Suffering
Want
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.
Men
Greed
Meals
The Problem For A Paracelsian Physician Like Me Is That I See Diseases As Disguises In Which People Present Me With Their Wretchedness.
People
Physicians
Disease
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.
Boys
Littles
Height
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.
Heart
Broken
Important
No One Needs A Word Processor If He Has An Efficient Secretary.
Needs
Efficient
Secretary
The Most Original Thing A Writer Can Do Is Write Like Himself. It Is Also His Most Difficult Task.
Writing
Tasks
Difficult
"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.
Daughter
Running
Children
When One Is Traveling, One Must Expect To Spend A Certain Amount Of Money Foolishly.
Certain
Amount
The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name Has Become The Love That Won't Shut Up.
Names
Speak
Shut Up
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.
Curiosity
Desire
Together
Too Much Traffic With A Quotation Book Begets A Conviction Of Ignorance In A Sensitive Reader. Not Only Is There A Mass Of Quotable Stuff He Never Quotes, But An Even Vaster Realm Of Which He Has Never Heard.
Book
Ignorance
Stuff
If You Don't Hurry Up And Let Life Know What You Want, Life Will Damned Soon Show You What You'll Get.
Moving On
Letting Go
Goal
Aristocrats Need Not Be Rich, But They Must Be Free, And In The Modern World Freedom Grows Rarer The More We Prate About It.
Needs
World
Rich
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.
Book
Junk
Language
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.
Beauty
Kindness
Important
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.
Mean
Heart
Way
The Quality Of What Is Said Inevitably Influences The Way In Which It Is Said, However Inexperienced The Writer.
Quality
Inexperience
Way
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.
Symphony
Trying
Bars
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.
Sex
Book
Mean
On The Whole, We Treat The Devil Shamefully, And The Worse We Treat Him The More He Laughs At Us.
Laughing
Devil
Satanic
The Pleasures Of Love Are For Those Who Are Hopelessly Addicted To Another Living Creature.
Pleasure
Creatures
Living Creatures
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.
Baby
Clever
Men
The Alexander Technique Keeps The Body Alive, At Ages When Many People Have Resigned Themselves To Irreversible Decline.
People
Age
Technique
Only A Fool Expects To Be Happy All The Time.
Fool
Foolishness
She Has Been Kissed As Often As A Police-court Bible, And By Much The Same Class Of People.
Funny
Sarcastic
Class
We Mistrust Anything That Too Strongly Challenges Our Ideal Of Mediocrity.
Challenges
Mediocrity
Mistrust
A Library Goes On As Far As Thought Can Reach.
Library
Goes On
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.
Art
Long
Religion
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.
Summer
Teacher
School
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.
Skeletons
Interesting
People
Computers Will Have To Learn That When I Quote From Some Old Author Who Spelled Differently From The Machine, The Wishes Of The Long-dead Author Will Have To Be Respected, And The Machine Will Have To Mind Its Manners
Long
Mind
Wish
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.
Country
Insanity
Dull
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.
Intelligent
Emotional
Thinking
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.
Memories
Book
Looks
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.
Attitude
Fall
Mean
"there Is No Disputing About Tastes," Says The Old Saw. In My Experience There Is Little Else.
Littles
Taste
Saws
All Mothers Think Their Children Are Oaks, But The World Never Lacks For Cabbages.
Mother
Children
Parenting
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.
Work
Names
People
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.
Science
Understanding
Dubious
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.
Tea
Facts
Sides
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.
Loyalty
Party
Men
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.
Christian
Reading
Color
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.
Dark
America
People
No People In The World Can Make You Feel So Small As The English.
People
World
Feels
Love Affairs Are For Emotional Sprinters; The Pleasures Of Love Are For The Emotional Marathoners.
Emotional
Affair
Pleasure
Extraordinary People Survive Under The Most Terrible Circumstances And They Become More Extraordinary Because Of It.
Courage
Adversity
Ordinary Extraordinary
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?
Brain
Musician
Vibrations
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.
Thinking
Healthy
Matter
The Ideal Companion In Bed Is A Good Book.
Book
Bed
Companion
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.
Children
Who I Am
Going Away
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.
Art
Children
War
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.
Theatre
Taxation
Admission
The Nature Of Happiness Is Such That Happiness Retreats The More Intensely You Pursue It.
Motivational
Happiness
Retreat
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.
Summer
Character
Men
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.
Art
Book
Reading
I Do Not 'get' Ideas; Ideas Get Me
Ideas
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.
Life
Good Luck
Ideas
Canada Is Not Really A Place Where You Are Encouraged To Have Large Spiritual Adventures.
Spiritual
Adventure
Canada
The Love Of Truth Lies At The Root Of Much Humor.
Love
Truth
Lying
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.
Strong
Party
Passion
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. . .
Book
People
Secret
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.
Love
Sex
Men
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.
Dog
Taken
Agency
Happiness Is Always A By-product. It Is Probably A Matter Of Temperament, And For Anything I Know It May Be Glandular.
Happiness
Happy
May
There Is Absolutely No Point In Sitting Down To Write A Book Unless You Feel That You Must Write That Book, Or Else Go Mad, Or Die.
Book
Writing
Mad
Boredom And Stupidity And Patriotism, Especially When Combined, Are Three Of The Greatest Evils Of The World We Live In.
Boredom
Evil
Stupidity
Imagination Is A Good Horse To Carry You Over The Ground - Not A Flying Carpet To Set You Free From Probability.
Art
Horse
Imagination
I Saw Corpses, And Grew Used To Their Unimportant Look, For A Dead Man Without Any Of The Panoply Of Death Is A Desperately Insignificant Object.
Men
Looks
Saws
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.
Blessed
Tragedy
Half
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.
Hate
Technology
Skills
You're All Mad For Words. Words Are Just Farts From A Lot Of Fools Who Have Swallowed Too Many Books. Give Me Things!
Book
Mad
Giving
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.
Mother
Food
Men
When A Man Is Down On His Luck He Seems To Consume All He Can Get Of Coffee And Doughnuts.
Coffee
Men
Luck
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.
Mistake
Real
Ignorance
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.
Blood
Knowing
Secret
I Still Have Trouble Identifying Grammatical Structures By Name, Though I Know Them As Matters Of Usage.
Names
Matter
Trouble
I Was Afraid And Did Not Know What I Feared, Which Is The Worst Kind Of Fear.
Fear
Kind
Worst
Inactivity And Deprivation Of All Accustomed Stimulus Is Not Rest; It Is A Preparation For The Tomb
Preparation
Deprivation
Stimulus
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.
Writing
Thinking
Stories
The Wit Of A Graduate Student Is Like Champagne. Canadian Champagne.
Students
Graduates
Champagne
Here Are Some Homosexuals Whom We Would Do Well To Take Seriously.
Homosexual
Wells
People Are Not Saints Just Because They Haven't Got Much Money Or Education.
People
Saint
Havens
Curiosity Is Part Of The Cement That Holds Society Together.
Curiosity
Together
Cement
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.
Funny
Wise
Dog
If We Seek The Pleasures Of Love, Passion Should Be Occasional, And Common Sense Continual.
Love
Life
Passion
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.
Giving
Curiosity
Degrees
The Drama May Be Called That Part Of Theatrical Art Which Lends Itself Most Readily To Intellectual Discussion: What Is Left Is Theater.
Art
Drama
Intellectual
Oho, Now I Know What You Are. You Are An Advocate Of Useful Knowledge.... Well, Allow Me To Introduce Myself To You As An Advocate Of Ornamental Knowledge. You Like The Mind To Be A Neat Machine, Equipped To Work Efficiently, If Narrowly, And With No Extra Bits Or Useless Parts. I Like The Mind To Be A Dustbin Of Scraps Of Brilliant Fabric, Odd Gems, Worthless But Fascinating Curiosities, Tinsel, Quaint Bits Of Carving, And A Reasonable Amount Of Healthy Dirt. Shake The Machine And It Goes Out Of Order; Shake The Dustbin And It Adjusts Itself Beautifully To Its New Position.
Knowledge
Order
Healthy
The Result Of A Single Action May Spread Like The Circles That Expand When A Stone Is Thrown Into A Pond, Until They Touch Places And People Unguessed At By The Person Who Threw The Stone.
Circles
People
Ponds
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.
Passionate
Actors
Welcome
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.
Believe
May
Belief
"civilization Rests On Two Things," Said Hitzig; "the Discovery That Fermentation Produces Alcohol, And Voluntary Ability To Inhibit Defecation. And I Put It To You, Where Would This Splendidly Civilized Occasion Be Without Both?"
Discovery
Civilization
Two
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.
Long Ago
Years
Mind
One Learns One’s Mystery At The Price Of One’s Innocence.
Innocence
Mystery
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
Reading
Past
Thinking
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.
Mean
Acceptance
Skills
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.
Past
Audience Of One
Long
And I Say To You That If You Bring Curiosity To Your Work It Will Cease To Be Merely A Job And Become A Door Through Which You Enter The Best That Life Has To Give You.
Jobs
Doors
Giving
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.
Writing
Spiders
Asking
The Division Between Art And Deviousness And Crime Is Sometimes As Thin As A Cigarette Paper.
Art
Division
Paper
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.
Sad
Depression
Writing
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.
Thinking
Devil
Lasts
Conversation In Its True Meaning Isn't All Wagging The Tongue; Sometimes It Is A Deeply Shared Silence.
Silence
Tongue
Sometimes
Fiction Is Not Photography, It's Oil Painting.
Photography
Oil
Fiction
A Man Who Recognizes No God Is Probably Placing An Inordinate Value On Himself.
God
Men
Values
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.
Choices
Doubt
Age
He Types His Labored Column - Weary Drudge! Senile Fudge And Solemn: Spare, Editor, To Condemn These Dry Leaves Of His Autumn.
Autumn
Editors
Fudge
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.
Running
Fun
People
Their Very Conservatism Is Secondhand, And They Don't Know What They Are Conserving.
Political
Politics
Conservatism
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.
Fighting
Thinking
People
We Have Educated Ourselves Into A World From Which Wonder, And He Fear And Dread And Splendor And Freedom Of Wonder Have Been Banished. Of Course Wonder Is Costly. You Couldn't Incorporate It Into A Modern State, Beacuse It Is The Antithesis Of The Anxiously Worshiped Security Which Is What A Modern State Is Asked To Give. Wonder Is Marvellous But It Is Also Cruel, Cruel, Cruel. It Is Undemocratic, Discriminatory And Pitiless.
Giving
World
Splendor
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.
Men
Long
Tasks
I Never Heard Of Anyone Who Was Really Literate Or Who Ever Really Loved Books Who Wanted To Suppress Any Of Them.
Book
Heard
Wanted
The Greatest Gift That Oxford Gives Her Sons Is, I Truly Believe, A Genial Irreverence Toward Learning, And From That Irreverence Love May Spring.
Love
Spring
Believe
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.
Wise
Men
Two
It Is Lost, Lovely Child, Somewhere In The Ragbag That I Laughingly Refer To As My Memory.
Children
Memories
Lost Love
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.
Humor
Light
People
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?
Hands
Restoration
Dirt
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.
Morning
Reading
Book
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.
Childhood
Slavery
May
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.
Vacation
Days Off
Week
To This Day I Am Indulgent Toward Orchestras That Are Trying To Lift Themselves In The World, While Critics Are Busy Assuring Them That They Are Not The Vienna Philharmonic And Never Will Be.
Trying
Vienna
World
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.
Loss
Love Is
Men
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.
Past
Mirrors
Order
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.
Talking
Names
Stupidity
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.
Giving Up
Forgiving
Suggestions
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.
Self
Doubt
Important
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.
Country
Book
Doctors
The Dog Is A Yes-animal. Very Popular With People Who Can't Afford A Yes Man.
Funny
Dog
Silly
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.
Book
Reading
People
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.
Beauty
Achievement
Today
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.
Real
Book
Dope
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.
Thinking
People
Laughing
The Wild Hunt Is Known In All Celtic Countries; It Is A Huntsman With A Pack Of Hounds Who Is Seen Or Heard To Rush Through The Country. Those Who See Him Are Doomed To Die. The Writer Heard The Wild Hunt Quite Distinctly One Night In Wales Several Years Ago, But Has Not Suffered Any Ill Effects From It As Yet.
Country
Night
Years
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.
People
Dollars
Majority
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.
Mean
Civilization
People
It Seemed To Me As If The Stones Sang, In The Strangest Voices, In The Language Of Ultima Thule.
Voice
Stones
Ultima
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.
Country
Scotch
Desire
Very Few [doctors] Are Men Of Science In Any Very Serious Sense; They're Men Of Technique.
Science
Men
Doctors
Tristan And Isolde Were Lucky To Die When They Did. They'd Have Been Sick Of All That Rubbish In A Year.
Love
Years
Sick
Whoever Declares A Child To Be "delicate" Thereby Crowns And Anoints A Tyrant.
Children
Tyrants
Crowns
To Be A Book-collector Is To Combine The Worst Characteristics Of A Dope Fiend With Those Of A Miser.
Book
Writing
Dope
Authors Like Cats Because They Are Such Quiet, Lovable, Wise Creatures, And Cats Like Authors For The Same Reasons.
Love
Funny
Wise
He Was A Genius - That Is To Say, A Man Who Does Superlatively And Without Obvious Effort Something That Most People Cannot Do By The Uttermost Exertion Of Their Abilities.
Business
Men
People
You Never See What You Want To See, Forever Playing To The Gallery.
Truth
Forever
Want
The Art Of The Quoter Is To Know When To Stop.
Art
Knows
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.
Teacher
Fall
Feet
Women Tell Men Things That Men Are Not Very Likely To Find Out For Themselves.
Men
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.
Thinking
Sky
People
All Real Fantasy Is Serious. Only Faked Fantasy Is Not Serious. That Is Why It Is So Wrong To Impose Faked Fantasy On Children.
Children
Real
Serious
After All, We Are Human Beings, And Not Creatures Of Infinite Possibilities.
Infinite
Possibility
Humans
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.
Life
Happiness
Happy
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.
Realizing
Delighted
Primaries
The Inert Mind Is A Greater Danger Than The Inert Body, For It Overlays And Stifles The Desire To Live.
Mind
Desire
Body
A Librettist Is A Mere Drudge In The World Of Opera.
World
Opera
Mere
The World Is Full Of People Whose Notion Of A Satisfactory Future Is, In Fact, A Return To The Idealized Past.
Future
Past
People
In A Government Like Ours, The Crown Is The Abiding And Unshakable Element In Government; Politicians May Come And Go, But The Crown Remains And Certain Aspects Of Our System Pertain To It Which Are Not Dependent On Any Political Party. In This Sense, The Crown Is The Consecrated Spirit Of Canada.
Party
Government
Political
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.
Real
Creativity
Creative
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.
Distance
Drama
Writing
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
Book
Pleasure
Live By
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.
Wise
Thinking
Trying
We Tend To Think Human Knowledge As Progressive; Because We Know More And More, Our Parents And Grandparents Are Back Numbers. But A Contrary Theory Is Possible - That We Simply Recognize Different Things At Different Times And In Different Ways.
Thinking
Numbers
Grandparent
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.
Support
Doe
Fortitude
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.
Love
Moving
Book
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.
Should Have
Police
Ignorant
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.
Art
People
Argument
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.
Stars
Character
Thinking
If You Attack Stupidity You Attack An Entrenched Interest With Friends In Government And Every Walk Of Public Life.
Life
Government
Stupidity
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.
Art
Teaching
Thinking
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.
Beautiful
Stars
California
The Eye Sees Only What The Mind Is Prepared To Comprehend.
Educational
Knowledge
Eye
There Is More To Marriage Than Four Bare Legs Under A Blanket.
Legs
Four
Blanket
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.
Happiness
Happy
Worry
We Live In A World Where Bulk Is Equated With Quality.
Quality
World
The Book Forces Itself Into My Mind When I Am Lugging Furniture, Or Pulling Weeds.
Weed
Book
Mind
Some Countries You Love. Some Countries You Hate. Canada Is A Country You Worry About.
Country
Hate
Worry
Fanaticism Is Overcompensation For Doubt.
Faith
Doubt
Atheism
A Happy Childhood Has Spoiled Many A Promising Life.
Childhood
Belief
Spoiled
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.
Math
Fool
Enough
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.
Years
Fifteen
Matter
Like It Or Not, To Reach Middle Age With Less Money Or Less Prestige Than Our Father Had Is Somewhat To Lose Face. Stupid Of Course, When Put Like That, But Who Is Prepared To Argue That We Are Not Stupid In Several Important Ways?
Stupid
Father
Important
What We Call Luck Is The Inner Man Externalized. We Make Things Happen To Us.
Business
Men
Luck
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.
Boys
Men
Self
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.
Stupid
Suffering
Speech
Trending Author
Paul Henderson
Mayim Bialik
Konrad Adenauer
Tia Carrere
Mitchell Kapor
Patti LuPone
Category
Information