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This is the Great Theatre of Life. Admission is free, but the taxation is mortal. You come when you can, and leave when you must. The show is continuous. Goodnight.

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
Come
Continuous
Must
Mortal
Great
Mortals
Life
Theatre
Leave
Free
Goodnight
Show
Admission
Shows
Taxation

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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.
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Though thousands of people indulge themselves in it regularly, and even develop a taste for it, there is no doubt in my mind (and that of scientists whom I employ to prove it) that Work is a dangerous and destructive drug, and should be called by its right name, which is Fatigue.
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One of the things that puzzles me is that so few people want to look at life as a totality and to recognize that death is no more extraordinary than birth. When they say it's the end of everything they don't seem to recognize that we came from somewhere and it would be very, very strange indeed to suppose that we're not going somewhere.
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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.
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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!
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In my collection, to me at least, the theatre of the past lives again and those long-dead playwrights and actors have in me an enthralled audience of one, and I applaud them across the centuries.
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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
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No, it's the musicians and I must say they are an accomplished bunch, but odd, as musicians tend to be. Is it the vibration from their instruments, do you suppose, working on the brain? All that fraught buzzing?
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The great charm of cats is their rampant egotism, their devil-may-care attitude toward responsibility, their disinclination to earn an honest dollar.
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Of course, fairies are all imported in North America. We have no native fairies. The Little People do not long survive importation unless they go to California and grow large and beautiful, but haven't much flavour, like the fruit and the film stars.
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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.
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No one needs a word processor if he has an efficient secretary.
Robertson Davies
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In the end, it is upon the quality and commitment of individuals that all group movements depend.
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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The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
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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A Librettist is a mere drudge in the world of opera.
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.
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Tristan and Isolde were lucky to die when they did. They'd have been sick of all that rubbish in a year.
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Love affairs are for emotional sprinters the pleasures of love are for the emotional marathoners.
Robertson Davies