Quotes from Pierre Berton

My best advice to writers is get yourself born in an interesting place.

Racism is a refuge for the ignorant. It seeks to divide and to destroy. It is the enemy of freedom, and deserves to be met head-on and stamped out.

I am an atheist, a rationalist and a humanist.

The concept of barroom shoot-outs and duels in the sun have no part in our tradition either, possibly because we have had so few barrooms and so little sun. (It is awkward to reach efficiently for a six-gun while wearing a parka and two pairs of mittens.)

I only write books about dead people. They can't sue.

On September 9, the day after Prevost's armistice ends, Napoleon launches and, at great cost, wins the Battle of Borodino, thus opening the way to Moscow. The casualties on that day exceed eighty thousand—a figure greater than the entire population, of Upper Canada.

I was hated, you know. I made no secret of the fact that I was an atheist. People told me there are no atheists in fox holes. That's nonsense. [interview promoting Marching as to War (2002)]

The more I see of the country, the less I feel I know about it. There is a saying that after five years in the north every man is an expert; after ten years, a novice.

Who, in Europe, can take this bloodless colonial fracas seriously? On September 9, the day after Prevost's armistice ends, Napoleon launches and, at great cost, wins the Battle of Borodino, thus opening the way to Moscow. The casualties on that day exceed eighty thousand—a figure greater than the entire population, of Upper Canada.

According to accepted newspaper clichés, we all go down fighting. The other day I even read that an 18-month-old baby had died after a long battle with cancer. That has become the mandatory phrase for all who expire, disease-ridden. They battled valiantly; they lost. When I finally depart I hope somebody will write, instead, that I died after a long battle with life.

My TV show enraged people. I had prostitutes on, and I treated them like real people.... I was fired from Maclean's after I wrote a piece called 'Let's Stop Hoaxing The Kids About Sex'. Now I'm the 'beloved author,' the 'beloved historian of Canada,' an icon. I get standing ovations.... I never set out to be a patriot or a popular historian. I just liked storytelling. [interview promoting Marching as to War (2002)]

Since the days of George III, Americans have resisted authority; Canadians, by and large, have not. And it seems to me that if Canadians from time to time have endured too much authority, you Americans have suffered from too little. If government becomes too strong, it becomes arbitrary; if it becomes too weak it can also become corrupt

In Upper Canada, during an emergency, individual civil liberties are not a matter of pressing concern. Individualism, after all, is an American concept, "liberty" a Yankee word.

The germs were already there in the hot, dry summer of 1929, when the crops began to fail on the southern prairies and the boom ran wild and out of hand and the country continued to overbuild on borrowed funds. The Great Depression was beginning and nobody knew it. The Great Repression was already under way but nobody cared. One did not need to visit Munich to see dissidents beaten to the ground. It was happening here.

In an affluent society there ought to be an income floor under every man below which society will not allow him to go – and this ought to come as a right and not as a charity.

W)e are Canadians and not Americans because of a foolish war that scarcely anyone wanted or needed, but which, once launched, no one knew how to stop.

Never retract, never explain, get things done and let them howl.

A Canadian is somebody who knows how to make love in a canoe.

My best advice to writers is get yourself born in an interesting place.

The nation is bound together by its creative artists and not by parallel lines of rusting steel.

The more I see of the country, the less I feel I know about it. There is a saying that after five years in the north every man is an expert; after ten years, a novice.

Racism is a refuge for the ignorant. It seeks to divide and to destroy. It is the enemy of freedom, and deserves to be met head-on and stamped out.