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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.

-Robertson Davies

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The Pleasures Of Love

Robertson Davies

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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.

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There Is No Nonsense So Gross That Society Will Not, At Some Time, Make A Doctrine Of It And Defend It With Every Weapon Of Communal Stupidity.

A Library Goes On As Far As Thought Can Reach.

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

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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.

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

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

Living Creatures

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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.

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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.

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

The Great Charm Of Cats Is Their Rampant Egotism, Their Devil-may-care Attitude Toward Responsibility, Their Disinclination To Earn An Honest Dollar.

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.

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.

Nobody Who Looks As Though He Enjoyed Life Is Ever Called Distinguished, Though He Is A Man In A Million.

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

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.

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

You Never See What You Want To See, Forever Playing To The Gallery.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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The Quality Of What Is Said Inevitably Influences The Way In Which It Is Said, However Inexperienced The Writer.

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.

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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.

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

Ordinary Extraordinary

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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.

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.

The Nature Of Happiness Is Such That Happiness Retreats The More Intensely You Pursue It.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Curiosity Is Part Of The Cement That Holds Society Together.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

The Art Of The Quoter Is To Know When To Stop.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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 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.

Nothing Grows Old-fashioned So Fast As Modernity.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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