Robertson Davies

"The world is full of people looking for spectacular experiences when often the most human experiences are the quiet, simple ones."

"I've always believed that a lot of the trouble in the world comes from idleness and boredom."

"The truth is that life is delicious, horrible, charming, frightful, sweet, bitter, and that is everything."

"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment."

"Be not another, if you can be yourself."

"Happiness is the greatest beauty there is. When a person is happy, they radiate a kind of glow."

"Marriage is a damnably serious affair, particularly nowadays, when it is asked to bear the weight of all our emotional demands."

"As a man thinketh, so he is; and as a man chooseth, so he is."

"The eye that sees beauty is the eye of love."

"Plagiarism is not really the greatest literary crime; the greatest is writing something mediocre and calling it your own."

"The question is not whether you will love, hate, suffer, or enjoy yourself; the question is how."

"We are dying from politeness."

"Too much sensibility, too much awareness of all that is lovely in nature and art, creates a state of mind that is unbearable to anyone Romantic."

"A man must accept his fate, and consent to grow old, though he may rail against it while doing so."

"Most people forget that it is impossible to work hard and not damage your health."

"We are the slaves of our education. What we have learned we cannot help knowing."

"The greatest success is incompleteness."

"A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad."

"The rewards that are worth pursuing are always the rewards that demand something of us."

"What the world calls romance is what the heart yearns for."

"Humor is the only divine consolation that we have in the afflictions of life."

"The true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece of literature. No other definition is worth a damn."

"In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you."

"God is not a homeopath."

"A truly great book should be read in youth first, then again in maturity, and once more in old age."

"Never trust a man who, when left alone in a room with a tea cozy, doesn't try it on."

"We are the sum of our influences."

"The successful man doesn't use other people, other people use themselves."

"There are times when I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability."

"It is part of the Canadian character to apologize for things that are not one's fault."