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No one needs a word processor if he has an efficient secretary.
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
Like it or not, to reach middle age with less money or less prestige than our father had is somewhat to lose face. Stupid of course, when put like that, but who is prepared to argue that we are not stupid in several important ways?
Robertson Davies
After all, we are human beings, and not creatures of infinite possibilities.
Robertson Davies
The most original thing a writer can do is write like himself. It is also his most difficult task.
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
What we call luck is the inner man externalized. We make things happen to us.
Robertson Davies
To ask an author who hopes to be a serious writer if his work is autobiographical is like asking a spider where he buys his thread. The spider gets his thread right out of his own guts, and that is where the author gets his writing.
Robertson Davies
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
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
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
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
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
A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.
Robertson Davies
When one is traveling, one must expect to spend a certain amount of money foolishly.
Robertson Davies
Boredom and stupidity and patriotism, especially when combined, are three of the greatest evils of the world we live in.
Robertson Davies
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
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
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.
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
Canada was settled, in the main, by people with a lower middle-class outlook, and a respect, rather than an affectionate familiarity, for the things of the mind.
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
