Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Firsts
Mets
First
Powerful
Thing
Getting
Men
Known
Life
Experience
Like
Makes
Irony
Doe
Drunk
Young
Handle

More quotes by Robertson Davies

Image
The problem for a Paracelsian physician like me is that I see diseases as disguises in which people present me with their wretchedness.
Robertson Davies
Image
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
Image
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.
Robertson Davies
Image
To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.
Robertson Davies
Image
That's the nub of the thing, you see seriousness of spirit. It doesn't mean heaviness of heart, or a lack of fantasy, but it does mean an awareness of influences that touch our lives, sometimes in ways that seem cruel and unfeeling, and sometimes in ways that open up a glory which can never be forgotten.
Robertson Davies
Image
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.
Robertson Davies
Image
In my experience tact is usually worse than the brutalities of truth.
Robertson Davies
Image
It is a waste of time to dissipate one's moral zeal in disapproving of royal persons who have mistresses.
Robertson Davies
Image
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
Image
When one is traveling, one must expect to spend a certain amount of money foolishly.
Robertson Davies
Image
They're all so highly educated, you know. Education is a great shield against experience. It offers so much, ready-made and all from the best shops, that there's a temptation to miss your own life in pursuing the lives of your betters. It makes you wise in some ways, but it can make you a blindfolded fool in others.
Robertson Davies
Image
The critic is the duenna in the passionate affair between playwrights, actors and audiences - a figure dreaded, and occasionally comic, but never welcome, never loved.
Robertson Davies
Image
He was a genius - that is to say, a man who does superlatively and without obvious effort something that most people cannot do by the uttermost exertion of their abilities.
Robertson Davies
Image
On the whole, we treat the Devil shamefully, and the worse we treat Him the more He laughs at us.
Robertson Davies
Image
If we seek the pleasures of love, passion should be occasional, and common sense continual.
Robertson Davies
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The ideal companion in bed is a good book.
Robertson Davies
Image
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
Image
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