Quotes from Mordecai Richler

Some of the attitudes of Barney are certainly attitudes I share, but not all.

It is no more expected of most producers to read a book than it is, say, of Ted Williams to dust off home plate.

Fiorito has all the right stuff. His splendid memoir about his relationship with his dying father belongs on that small shelf with Philip Roth's Patrimony and Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes.

I obviously prefer writing novels but I take my journalism very seriously, and I enjoy doing it between novels. It gives me an opportunity to move in the outside world.

I'm criticized by the feminists, by the Jewish establishment, by Canadian nationalists. And why not? I've had my pot shots at them. I'm fair game.

Fundamentally, all writing is about the same thing; it's about dying, about the brief flicker of time we have here, and the frustration that it creates.

We live in the country, and I have a huge library there. When we go to London for the winter I never know which books to take. I never know what I am going to need. That's the only disadvantage.

Coming from Canada, being a writer and Jewish as well, I have impeccable paranoia credentials.

Everybody writes a book too many.

Wherever I travel I'm too late. The orgy has moved elsewhere.

Nothing is absolute any longer. There is a choice of beliefs and a choice of truths to go with them. If you choose not to choose then there is no truth at all. There are only points of view.

Actually, when it comes to knocking the Canadian cultural scene, nobody outdoes Canadians, myself included. We are veritable masters of self-deprecation.

Listen your Lordship, I'm a respecter of institutions. Even in Paris, I remained a Canadian. I puffed hashish, but I didn't inhale.

Shame on you. Don't tell me you've been married for an hour and you've already got eyes for another woman.

There are ten commandments, right? Well, it's like an exam. You get eight out of ten, you're just about top of the class.

I work every day-or at least I force myself into my office or room. I may get nothing done, but you don't earn bonuses without putting in time. Nothing may come for three months, but you don't earn the fourth without it.

I work every day-or at least I force myself into my office or room. I may get nothing done, but you don't earn bonuses without putting in time. Nothing may come for three months, but you don't get the fourth without it.

I work every day - or at least I force myself into office or room. I may get nothing done, but you don't earn bonuses without putting in time. Nothing may come for three months, but you don't earn the fourth without it.

Fundamentally, all writing is about the same thing: it's about dying, about the brief flicker of time we have here, and the frustrations that it creates.

A boy can be two, three, four potential people, but a man is only one. He murders the others.

Beauty, like male ballet dancers, makes some men afraid.

Each man creates god in his own image.

In Canada, nobody is ever overthrown because nobody gives a damn.

If you're writing a novel, you're in a room for three or four years. There's not much coming in from the outside.