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One learns one’s mystery at the price of one’s innocence.

Robertson Davies

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Robertson Davies
Age: 82 †
Born: 1913
Born: August 28
Died: 1995
Died: December 3
Journalist
Literary Critic
Musicologist
Novelist
Playwright
Professor
Reporter
Writer
William Robertson Davies
Learns
Innocence
Price
Mystery

More quotes by Robertson Davies

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I think we're living in an age which despises humanity and despises bravery and doesn't need bravery because modern warfare has rather gone beyond bravery. It is a kind of warfare where people are fighting enemies they never see, killing people of whom they know nothing.
Robertson Davies
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The clerisy are those who seek, and find, delight and enlargement of life in books. The clerisy are those for whom reading is a personal art.
Robertson Davies
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She has been kissed as often as a police-court Bible, and by much the same class of people.
Robertson Davies
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It is in this matter that I fall foul of so many American writers on writing they seem to think that writing is a confidence game by means of which the author cajoles a restless, dull-witted, shallow audience into hearing his point of view. Such an attitude is base, and can only beget base prose.
Robertson Davies
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My dear fellow, my whole life is moved by the principle that the one thing which is more important than peace is music. It is because I believe that I am poor.
Robertson Davies
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Childhood may have periods of great happiness, but it also has times that must simply be endured. Childhood at its best is a form of slavery tempered by affection.
Robertson Davies
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I just am a Canadian. It is not a thing which you can escape from. It is like having blue eyes
Robertson Davies
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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.
Robertson Davies
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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.
Robertson Davies
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May I make a suggestion, hoping it is not an impertinence? Write it down: write down what you feel. It is sometimes a wonderful help in misery.
Robertson Davies
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Canada was settled, in the main, by people with a lower middle-class outlook, and a respect, rather than an affectionate familiarity, for the things of the mind.
Robertson Davies
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You're all mad for words. Words are just farts from a lot of fools who have swallowed too many books. Give me things!
Robertson Davies
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Conversation in its true meaning isn't all wagging the tongue sometimes it is a deeply shared silence.
Robertson Davies
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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
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A big man is always accused of gluttony, whereas a wizened or osseous man can eat like a refugee at every meal, and no one ever notices his greed.
Robertson Davies
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The critic is the duenna in the passionate affair between playwrights, actors and audiences - a figure dreaded, and occasionally comic, but never welcome, never loved.
Robertson Davies
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No one needs a word processor if he has an efficient secretary.
Robertson Davies
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I was not sure I wanted to issue orders to life I rather liked the Greek notion of allowing Chance to take a formative hand in my affairs.
Robertson Davies
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It is a waste of time to dissipate one's moral zeal in disapproving of royal persons who have mistresses.
Robertson Davies
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On the whole, we treat the Devil shamefully, and the worse we treat Him the more He laughs at us.
Robertson Davies