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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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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
Shows
Life
Haste
Hurry
Damned
Soon
Goal
Show
Moving

More quotes by 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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Oh hearts! Nobody gets through life without a broken heart. The important thing is to break the heart so that when it mends it will be stronger than before.
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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Women say . . . that if men had to have babies there would soon be no babies in the world. . . . I have sometimes wished that some clever man would actually have a baby in some new labor-saving way then all men could take it up, and one of the oldest taunts in the world would be stilled forever.
Robertson Davies
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The quality of what is said inevitably influences the way in which it is said, however inexperienced the writer.
Robertson Davies
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I think a lot of people have unreasonable expectations because they never stop to consider what life actually has to offer them. They're always looking for some great epiphany from the skies. They never stop to consider the fact which human beings find hardest to recognize: Maybe I'm not worthy of an epiphany.
Robertson Davies
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here are some homosexuals whom we would do well to take seriously.
Robertson Davies
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In my experience tact is usually worse than the brutalities of truth.
Robertson Davies
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Speakers' nerves affect them in various ways. Some tremble, some become frenzied. I lose all confidence, and suffer from a leaden oppression that makes me wonder why I ever agreed to speak at all the Tomb and the Conqueror Worm seem preferable to delivering the stupid and piffling speech I have so carefully prepared.
Robertson Davies
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I think of the author as somebody who goes into the marketplace and puts down his rug and says, 'I will tell you a story' and then he passes the hat.
Robertson Davies
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There is no disputing about tastes, says the old saw. In my experience there is little else.
Robertson Davies
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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
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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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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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I would not for a moment have you suppose that I am one of those idiots who scorns Science, merely because it is always twisting and turning, and sometimes shedding its skin, like the serpent that is [the doctors'] symbol.
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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People are not saints just because they haven't got much money or education.
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 love of truth lies at the root of much humor.
Robertson Davies
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The nature of happiness is such that happiness retreats the more intensely you pursue it.
Robertson Davies