Quotes from Robertson Davies

The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealised past.

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

Literary critics, however, frequently suffer from a curious belief that every author longs to extend the boundaries of literary art, wants to explore new dimensions of the human spirit, and if he doesn't, he should be ashamed of himself.

Several children present me with scraps of paper for autographs: obviously don't know who I am and don't care. I sign "Jackie Collins" and they go away quite content.

Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision.

The love of truth lies at the root of much humour.

The drama may be called that part of theatrical art which lends itself most readily to intellectual discussion: what is left is theater.

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 world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past.

Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it.

The magician Merlin had a strange laugh, and it was heard when nobody else was laughing…. He laughed because he knew what was coming next.

The love of truth lies at the root of much humor.

The dog is a yes-animal, very popular with people who can't afford to keep a yes-man.

Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don't know what they are conserving.

The greatest gift that Oxford gives her sons is, I truly believe, a genial irreverence toward learning, and from that irreverence love may spring.

Vaudeville audiences… could give the loudest sighs I have ever heard. Prisoners in the Bastille couldn't have touched them.

Although I am almost illiterate mathematically, I grasped very early in life that any one who can count to ten can count upward indefinitely if he is fool enough to do so.

Never harbor grudges; they sour your stomach and do no harm to anyone else.

I do not really like vacations. I much prefer an occasional day off when I do not feel like working. When I am confronted with a whole week in which I have nothing to do but enjoy myself I do not know where to begin. To me, enjoyment comes fleetingly and unheralded; I cannot determinedly enjoy myself for a whole week at a time.

She was worse than a blabber; she was a hinter. It gave her pleasure to rouse curiosity and speculation about dangerous things.

A Librettist is a mere drudge in the world of opera.

As A general rule, people marry most hapily with their own kind. The trouble lies in the fact that people usually marry at an age where they do not really know what their own kind is.

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

He types his labored column -- weary drudge! Senile fudge and solemn: spare, editor, to condemn these dry leaves of his autumn.