Robertson Davies

The pleasures of love are for those who are hopelessly addicted to another living creature.

— Robertson Davies

The Alexander Technique keeps the body alive, at ages when many people have resigned themselves to irreversible decline.

— Robertson Davies

You would not serve junk food at a banquet, and your book must be a banquet. Get your language from Swift, not…

— Robertson Davies

You never see what you want to see, forever playing to the gallery.

— Robertson Davies

All mothers think their children are oaks, but the world never lacks for cabbages.

— Robertson Davies

The most original thing a writer can do is write like himself. It is also his most difficult task.

— Robertson Davies

“God, youth is a terrible time! So much feeling and so little notion of how to handle it!”

— 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.

— Robertson Davies

This is one of the cruelties of the theatre of life; we all think of ourselves as stars and rarely recognize it…

— Robertson Davies

“The only people who make any sense in the world are those who know that whatever happens to them has its roots…

— Robertson Davies

To this day I am indulgent toward orchestras that are trying to lift themselves in the world, while critics are busy assuring…

— Robertson Davies

Canada was settled, in the main, by people with a lower middle-class outlook, and a respect, rather than an affectionate familiarity, for…

— Robertson Davies

If you're going to do something that looks evil, don't smear it with icing and pretend it's good; just bloody well do…

— Robertson Davies

He was a genius - that is to say, a man who does superlatively and without obvious effort something that most people…

— Robertson Davies

The people of the United States, perhaps more than any other nation in history, love to abase themselves and proclaim their unworthiness,…

— Robertson Davies

“The recognition of oneself as a part of nature, and reliance on natural things, are disappearing for hundreds of millions of people…

— Robertson Davies

“...What was wrong between Diana and me was that she was too much a mother to me, and as I had had…

— Robertson Davies

Moderation, the Golden Mean, the Aristonmetron, is the secret of wisdom and of happiness. But it does not mean embracing an unadventurous…

— Robertson Davies

“For I was, as you have already guessed, a collaborator with Destiny, not one who put a pistol to its head and…

— Robertson Davies

The Wild Hunt is known in all Celtic countries; it is a huntsman with a pack of hounds who is seen or…

— Robertson Davies

Canada, having few indigenous prejudices, has been compelled to import them from elsewhere, duty-free, and it is the rare Canadian who is…

— Robertson Davies

To instruct calls for energy, and to remain almost silent, but watchful and helpful, while students instruct themselves, calls for even greater…

— Robertson Davies

I do not really like vacations. I much prefer an occasional day off when I do not feel like working. When I…

— Robertson Davies

In a government like ours, the Crown is the abiding and unshakable element in government; politicians may come and go, but the…

— Robertson Davies

A man who recognizes no God is probably placing an inordinate value on himself.

— Robertson Davies

"There is no disputing about tastes," says the old saw. In my experience there is little else.

— Robertson Davies

It was as though she was an exile from a world that saw things her way

— Robertson Davies

The book forces itself into my mind when I am lugging furniture, or pulling weeds.

— Robertson Davies

In the end, it is upon the quality and commitment of individuals that all group movements depend.

— Robertson Davies

“What had Pledger-Brown said? "Too bad, Davey; he wanted blood and all we could offer was guts.”

— Robertson Davies

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

— Robertson Davies

Whoever declares a child to be "delicate" thereby crowns and anoints a tyrant.

— Robertson Davies

No people in the world can make you feel so small as the English.

— Robertson Davies

“I wish people weren't so set on being themselves, when that means being a bastard.”

— Robertson Davies

The nature of happiness is such that happiness retreats the more intensely you pursue it.

— Robertson Davies

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

— Robertson Davies

It isn't everybody who is the hero of his own romance, and when we meet one he is likely to be a…

— Robertson Davies

here are some homosexuals whom we would do well to take seriously.

— Robertson Davies

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

— Robertson Davies

All art is holy. Not that it is all long-faced and miserable; it can be wild and wooly. But if it transforms…

— Robertson Davies