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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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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
Says
Somebody
Story
Marketplace
Tell
Passes
Stories
Hats
Writing
Author
Think
Puts
Thinking
Goes

More quotes by Robertson Davies

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One learns one’s mystery at the price of one’s innocence.
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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.
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Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them.
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No one needs a word processor if he has an efficient secretary.
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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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All art is holy. Not that it is all long-faced and miserable it can be wild and wooly. But if it transforms you, it is art. And it is holy.
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Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog fewer when pursued by a mad woman only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion.
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In the end, it is upon the quality and commitment of individuals that all group movements depend.
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Every man makes his own summer. The season has no character of its own, unless one is a farmer with a professional concern for the weather.
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A Librettist is a mere drudge in the world of opera.
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Whoever declares a child to be delicate thereby crowns and anoints a tyrant.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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The egotist is all surface underneath is a pulpy mess and a lot of self-doubt. But the egoist may be yielding and even deferential in things he doesn't consider important in anything that touches his core he is remorseless.
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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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No people in the world can make you feel so small as the English.
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The whole world is burdened with young fogies. Old men with ossified minds are easily dealt with. But men who look young, act young, and everlastingly harp on the fact they are young, but who nevertheless think and act with a degree of caution which would be excessive in their grandfathers, are the curses of the world.
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In my experience tact is usually worse than the brutalities of truth.
Robertson Davies