Robertson Davies
Robertson Davies
William Robertson Davies, CC, OOnt, FRSC, FRSLwas a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. He was one of Canada's best known and most popular authors and one of its most distinguished "men of letters", a term Davies is variously said to have gladly accepted for himself and to have detested. Davies was the founding Master of Massey College, a graduate residential college associated with the University of Toronto...
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth28 August 1913
admission free leave taxation
Admission is free but the taxation is mortal. You come when you can, and leave when you must. The show is continuous. Good-night.
fear humor lights opinions people possibilities power present question received suggest suspicious unexpected
The people who fear humor - and there are many -are suspicious of its power to present things in unexpected lights to question received opinions and to suggest unforeseen possibilities
everybody hero likely meet monster romance
It isn't everybody who is the hero of his own romance, and when we meet one he is likely to be a fascinating monster
common common-sense occasional passion pleasures seek
If we seek the pleasures of love, passion should be occasional and common sense continual.
column condemn dry leaves senile types weary
He types his labored column -- weary drudge! Senile fudge and solemn: spare, editor, to condemn these dry leaves of his autumn.
books books-and-reading friend fully great people realm worth
The people who are always monkeying with these great books to make them fully (comprehensible) have no friend in me, for in their realm the fully comprehensible is not worth comprehending
books books-and-reading both burned colored destroyed heard library
I heard his library burned down and both books were destroyed - and one of them hadn't even been colored in yet.
carpet carry flying free good ground horse imagination
Imagination is a good horse to carry you over the ground -- not a flying carpet to set you free from probability.
symphony trying bars
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.
men average nasty
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 people effort
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.
art wine alcohol
Art is wine and experience is the brandy we distill from it.
happiness happy worry
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.
love years sick
Tristan and Isolde were lucky to die when they did. They'd have been sick of all that rubbish in a year.