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Robertson Davies

Robertson Davies Quotes

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Famous Robertson Davies Quotes

“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.”

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Book:Conversations with Robertson Davies
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“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.”

PeopleShouldMindNamesWorkDoubtDangerousTasteDrugProveScientistNo DoubtDestructiveFatigueIndulgeProve It
Book:The papers of Samuel Marchbanks
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“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.”

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Book:The Merry Heart: Reflections on Reading, Writing, and the World of Books
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“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.”

PeopleLittlesLongAmericaBeautifulFilmCoursesStarsGrowsHavensFruitCaliforniaFairyNativeNorth AmericaFlavourFilm StarsImportation
Book:Happy Alchemy: On the Pleasures of Music and the Theatre
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“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.”

PeopleWantLooksEndsSeemsWould BeStrangeBirthExtraordinaryPuzzlesTotality
Book:Conversations with Robertson Davies
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“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.”

PeopleWorldWayStillsReasonHelpingMightUnderstandingInterestingBandCuriosityInsightMy WayRevelationsHelp MeCommonplaceImpartSkeletonsDeviationHermaphrodites
Author:Robertson Davies
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“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.”

PeopleThinkingHumansCareLeftSidesEmotionalBedCreaturesConcernIntelligentComplexesAffectionTake CareDelicateMalnutritionPerishingFussing
Author:Robertson Davies
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“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.”

PeopleShouldWritingTryingProblemBigsWould BeGroupsSingersTriumphScreamOperaComposerSteamSeductiveIngeniousSecretiveInstantaneousBig Heads
Book:The papers of Samuel Marchbanks
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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.”

PeopleKindReasonHandsWiseObjectsHealthyBedBlueSavingSpiteWealthySchemesDoing NothingDaylightPuritanismSaving TimeDaylight Savings
Author:Robertson Davies
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“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.”

PeopleIfsKnowsWantMindWarAbilityMoneyMillionsFiguresPoliticianConceptsMajorityDollarsNotionSizeRationalOccasionsContractsReflectingMillion DollarsSwellingAccordions
Author:Robertson Davies
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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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Author:Robertson Davies
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“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.”

PeopleLooksBookRealShowsDesireChurchSecretWorstPossessionBarsHandleSpotsCharacteristicsShelvesEldersResortsDarlingVisitingCollectorsDopeShowing OffMisersCaliphsHaremBibliophiles
Author:Robertson Davies
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“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.”

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Book:The Merry Heart: Reflections on Reading, Writing, and the World of Books
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“Not enough attention is paid to the negative side of fashion. Great effort is exerted to make people look smart, but somebody should face the fact that a lot of people never will be smart, and that they should be given some assistance in maintaining their fascinating dowdiness.”

PeopleShouldLooksEnoughFactsFacesGivenSidesEffortAttentionFashionSmartNegativePaidFascinatingAssistanceMaintainingBeing SmartGreat Effort
Book:The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks
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