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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
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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
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More quotes by Robertson Davies
There can be no doubt that Samuel Marchbanks is one of the choice and master spirits of this age. If there were such a volume as Who Really Ought To Be Who his entry would require several pages.
Robertson Davies
Literary critics, however, frequently suffer from a curious belief that every author longs to extend the boundaries of literary art, wants to explore new dimensions of the human spirit, and if he doesn't, he should be ashamed of himself.
Robertson Davies
The Alexander Technique keeps the body alive, at ages when many people have resigned themselves to irreversible decline.
Robertson Davies
Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them.
Robertson Davies
After all, we are human beings, and not creatures of infinite possibilities.
Robertson Davies
No people in the world can make you feel so small as the English.
Robertson Davies
To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.
Robertson Davies
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
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
People are not saints just because they haven't got much money or education.
Robertson Davies
It is in this matter that I fall foul of so many American writers on writing they seem to think that writing is a confidence game by means of which the author cajoles a restless, dull-witted, shallow audience into hearing his point of view. Such an attitude is base, and can only beget base prose.
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
The quality of what is said inevitably influences the way in which it is said, however inexperienced the writer.
Robertson Davies
Art is wine and experience is the brandy we distill from it.
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
Whoever declares a child to be delicate thereby crowns and anoints a tyrant.
Robertson Davies
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
The love of truth lies at the root of much humor.
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
In the end, it is upon the quality and commitment of individuals that all group movements depend.
Robertson Davies