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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.
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
Lucky
Year
Dies
Years
Love
Isolde
Tristan
Rubbish
Sick
More quotes by Robertson Davies
Art is always at peril in universities, where there are so many people, young and old, who love art less than argument, and dote upon a text that provides the nutritious pemmican on which scholars love to chew.
Robertson Davies
The Bible takes much of its color from whoever is reading it, and it provides a text to support almost every shade of opinion, however preposterous.
Robertson Davies
Humour very often consists of shrewd perceptions about people. It's usually fun at someone's expense. Nowadays if you're funny at anybody's expense they run to the UN and say, I must have an ombudsman to protect me. You hardly dare have a shrewd perception about anybody.
Robertson Davies
The little boy nodded at the peony and the peony seemed to nod back. The little boy was neat, clean and pretty. The peony was unchaste, dishevelled as peonies must be, and at the height of its beauty.(...) Every hour is filled with such moments, big with significance for someone.
Robertson Davies
One can always tell it's summer when one sees school teachers hanging about the streets idly, looking like cannibals during a shortage of missionaries.
Robertson Davies
Celtic civilization was tribal, but by no means savage or uncultivated. People who regarded the theft of a harp from a bard as a crime second only to an attack on the tribal chieftain cannot be regarded as wanting in cultivated feeling.
Robertson Davies
And I say to you that if you bring curiosity to your work it will cease to be merely a job and become a door through which you enter the best that life has to give you.
Robertson Davies
In a government like ours, the Crown is the abiding and unshakable element in government politicians may come and go, but the Crown remains and certain aspects of our system pertain to it which are not dependent on any political party. In this sense, the Crown is the consecrated spirit of Canada.
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
The result of a single action may spread like the circles that expand when a stone is thrown into a pond, until they touch places and people unguessed at by the person who threw the stone.
Robertson Davies
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
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
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
A Librettist is a mere drudge in the world of opera.
Robertson Davies
Everything matters. The Universe is approximately fifteen billion years old, and I swear that in all that time, nothing has ever happened that has not mattered, has not contributed in some way to the totality.
Robertson Davies
I do not really like vacations. I much prefer an occasional day off when I do not feel like working. When I am confronted with a whole week in which I have nothing to do but enjoy myself I do not know where to begin. To me, enjoyment comes fleetingly and unheralded I cannot determinedly enjoy myself for a whole week at a time.
Robertson Davies
When irony first makes itself known in a young man's life, it can be like his first experience of getting drunk he has met with a powerful thing which he does not know how to handle.
Robertson Davies
In India it is regarded as a good idea to dart in front of an oncoming car, for the car is sure to kill the evil spirits who are pursuing you, and all the rest of your life you will have good luck.
Robertson Davies
If we seek the pleasures of love, passion should be occasional, and common sense continual.
Robertson Davies
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
