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To ask an author who hopes to be a serious writer if his work is autobiographical is like asking a spider where he buys his thread. The spider gets his thread right out of his own guts, and that is where the author gets his writing.
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
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William Robertson Davies
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More quotes by Robertson Davies
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.
Robertson Davies
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
No one needs a word processor if he has an efficient secretary.
Robertson Davies
Conversation in its true meaning isn't all wagging the tongue sometimes it is a deeply shared silence.
Robertson Davies
When one is traveling, one must expect to spend a certain amount of money foolishly.
Robertson Davies
We mistrust anything that too strongly challenges our ideal of mediocrity.
Robertson Davies
The ideal companion in bed is a good book.
Robertson Davies
Aristocrats need not be rich, but they must be free, and in the modern world freedom grows rarer the more we prate about it.
Robertson Davies
Happiness is a by-product. It is not a primary product of life. It is a thing which you suddenly realize you have because you're so delighted to be doing something which perhaps has nothing whatever to do with happiness.
Robertson Davies
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.
Robertson Davies
Whoever declares a child to be delicate thereby crowns and anoints a tyrant.
Robertson Davies
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
On the whole, we treat the Devil shamefully, and the worse we treat Him the more He laughs at us.
Robertson Davies
There is absolutely no point in sitting down to write a book unless you feel that you must write that book, or else go mad, or die.
Robertson Davies
I never heard of anyone who was really literate or who ever really loved books who wanted to suppress any of them. Censors only read a book with great difficulty, moving their lips as they puzzle out each syllable, when someone tells them that the book is unfit to read.
Robertson Davies
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
Pornography is rather like trying to find out about a Beethoven symphony by having somebody tell you about it and perhaps hum a few bars.
Robertson Davies
Be sure to choose what you believe and why you believe it, because if you don't choose your beliefs, you may be certain that some belief, and probably not a very credible one, will choose you.
Robertson Davies
I cannot imagine any boy of spirit who would not be delighted to play a drunkard even to vomiting in front of his Sunday school. Indeed, the vomiting might be the chief attraction of the role.
Robertson Davies
The clerisy are those who read for pleasure, but not for idleness who read for pastime but not to kill time who love books, but do not live by books
Robertson Davies
