Robertson Davies quotes - page 4

If we seek the pleasures of love, passion should be occasional, and common sense continual. (Robertson Davies)
Only a fool expects to be happy all the time. View quote
Robertson Davies
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. View quote
Robertson Davies
The most original thing a writer can do is write like himself. It is also his most difficult task. View quote
Robertson Davies
Fanaticism is overcompensation for doubt. View quote
Robertson Davies
I never heard of anyone who was really literate or who ever really loved books who wanted to suppress any of them. View quote
Robertson Davies
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. View quote
Robertson Davies
No people in the world can make you feel so small as the English. View quote
Robertson Davies
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. View quote
Robertson Davies
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. View quote
Robertson Davies
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. (Robertson Davies)
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. View quote
Robertson Davies
If you don't hurry up and let life know what you want, life will damned soon show you what you'll get. View quote
Robertson Davies
Tristan and Isolde were lucky to die when they did. They'd have been sick of all that rubbish in a year. View quote
Robertson Davies
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." View quote
Robertson Davies
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. View quote
Robertson Davies
If you attack Stupidity you attack an entrenched interest with friends in government and every walk of public life. View quote
Robertson Davies
The devil gave me a look which made me profoundly uneasy. 'Just because I am enjoying your sympathy, don't imagine that I cannot read you like a book,' he said. 'You think you are cleverer than I; it is a very common academic delusion. View quote
Robertson Davies
Perhaps the most striking difference between Malory's Morte d'Arthur and Tennyson's Idylls of the King is that Malory's women are all human beings, and that Tennyson's are, in greater or less degree, prizes for good conduct. View quote
Robertson Davies
The peak of my school experience of Shakespeare came in my senior matriculation year; the set play was "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and it was taught by a solemn donkey who understood nothing but the political organization of fairyland. I well remember him dictating a long note which began, "The fairies live in fairyland full stop. They have a king comma and a queen." View quote
Robertson Davies
I knew that he prayed a great deal, of course for help in the examinations. But subsequent clinical experience has convinced me that God is not particularly interested in examinations, just as he won't be dragged into the Stock Market, or being a backer in show business. (Robertson Davies)
The professor who lectured on Shakespeare seemed to be entrapped in a grotesque, retrospective love affair with every one of Shakespeare's heroines. I think he even had a feeling that he could have made a respectable faculty wife out of Lady Macbeth. View quote
Robertson Davies
It would be nice to be unfailingly, perpetually, remorselessly funny, day in and day out, year in and year out until somebody murdered you, now wouldn't it? View quote
Robertson Davies
Why doesn't he throw himself on the ground, saying "You are my Soul, my Better Self, be mine or I stab myself with this pair of protractors"; then she could reply, "Nay, press me not, I am Another's". In that way they could really have some romantic fun and store up things to tell their grandchildren. No style, no breadth, that's the trouble with the modern High School set. View quote
Robertson Davies
I don't suppose there is a country in the world where a playwright has such a tremendous field for modesty as Canada. View quote
Robertson Davies