Robertson Davies Quotes

"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."

"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."

"The eyes see only what the mind is prepared to comprehend."

"In my experience tact is usually worse than the brutalities of truth"

"Canada is not really a place where you are encouraged to have large spiritual adventures."

"What we call luck is the inner man externalized. We make things happen to us."

"Only a fool expects to be happy all the time."

"Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision."

"I do not 'get' ideas; ideas get me."

"Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them."

"Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it."

"The quality of what is said inevitably influences the way in which it is said, however inexperienced the writer."

"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"

"I never heard of anyone who was really literate or who ever really loved books who wanted to suppress any of them."

"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 like you would have to go to public halls and pay good prices to hear the professionals decode and read the books aloud for you. This plan would have the advantage of scaring off all amateur authors, retired politicians, country doctors and I-Married-a-Midget writers who would not have the patience to learn the secret language."

"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"

"To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser."

"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."

"I heard his library burned down and both books were destroyed - and one of them hadn't even been colored in yet."

"If we seek the pleasures of love, passion should be occasional and common sense continual."