Robertson Davies Quotes

Most popular Robertson Davies Quotes

Biography at its best is a form of fiction. - Robertson Davies quote.
Biography at its best is a form of fiction.
— Robertson Davies The Lyre of Orpheus

fiction biography

Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision. - Robertson Davies quote.
Nothing is so easy to fake as the inner vision.
— Robertson Davies What’s Bred in the Bone

vision

The love of truth lies at the root of much humor. - Robertson Davies quote.
The love of truth lies at the root of much humor.
— Robertson Davies in Our Living Tradition

humor truth

Experience is wine, and art is the brandy we distill from it. - Robertson Davies quote.
Experience is wine, and art is the brandy we distill from it.
— Robertson Davies A Mixture of Frailties

art

What we call luck is the inner man externalized.  We make things happen to us. - Robertson Davies quote.
What we call luck is the inner man externalized.  We make things happen to us.
— Robertson Davies What’s Bred in the Bone

luck

Whether you are really right or not doesn't matter; it's the belief that counts. - Robertson Davies quote.
Whether you are really right or not doesn't matter; it's the belief that counts.
— Robertson Davies

beliefs

Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don't know what they are conserving. - Robertson Davies quote.
Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don't know what they are conserving.
— Robertson Davies

conservatives

The dog is a Yes-animal, very popular with people who can't afford to keep a Yes-man. - Robertson Davies quote.
The dog is a Yes-animal, very popular with people who can't afford to keep a Yes-man.
— Robertson Davies

dogs

If we seek the pleasures of love, passion should be occasional, and common sense continual. - Robertson Davies quote.
If we seek the pleasures of love, passion should be occasional, and common sense continual.
— Robertson Davies
Ah that blessed degree that stamps us for life as creatures of guaranteed intellectual worth. - Robertson Davies quote.
Ah that blessed degree that stamps us for life as creatures of guaranteed intellectual worth.
— Robertson Davies The Rebel Angels
As I once said of George Bernard Shaw, he bloomed at twenty, but nobody smelled him till he was forty. - Robertson Davies quote.
As I once said of George Bernard Shaw, he bloomed at twenty, but nobody smelled him till he was forty.
— Robertson Davies in The Paris Review
Imagination is a good horse to carry you over the ground—not a flying carpet to set you free from probability. - Robertson Davies quote.
Imagination is a good horse to carry you over the ground—not a flying carpet to set you free from probability.
— Robertson Davies

dreams imagination

Happiness is always a by-product.  It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. - Robertson Davies quote.
Happiness is always a by-product.  It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular.
— Robertson Davies Maclean’s

happiness

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. - Robertson Davies quote.
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.
— Robertson Davies

autobiography

If you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness. - Robertson Davies quote.
If you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
— Robertson Davies Maclean’s

unhappiness

Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog; fewer when pursued by a mad woman; only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion. - Robertson Davies quote.
Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog; fewer when pursued by a mad woman; only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion.
— Robertson Davies Marchbanks’ Almanack

insanity

If a man wants to be of the greatest possible value to his fellow-creatures, let him begin the long, solitary process of perfecting himself. - Robertson Davies quote.
If a man wants to be of the greatest possible value to his fellow-creatures, let him begin the long, solitary process of perfecting himself.
— Robertson Davies A Jig for the Gypsy

changing people

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 quote.
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 The Toronto Star

curiosity

I think of an 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 quote.
I think of an 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 The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies

authors

Trollope is endlessly gripping, though it's rather crunchy granola: you chomp your way resolutely through it, and it's worth it because the story is so good. - Robertson Davies quote.
Trollope is endlessly gripping, though it's rather crunchy granola: you chomp your way resolutely through it, and it's worth it because the story is so good.
— Robertson Davies in The Paris Review
To be apt in quotation is a splendid and dangerous gift.  Splendid, because it ornaments a man's speech with other men's jewels; dangerous, for the same reason. - Robertson Davies quote.
To be apt in quotation is a splendid and dangerous gift.  Splendid, because it ornaments a man's speech with other men's jewels; dangerous, for the same reason.
— Robertson Davies The Toronto Daily Star

quotations

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 quote.
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 Peterborough Examiner

reading books classics re-reading

When you're a novelist, you're writing a play but you're acting all the parts, you're controlling the lights and the scenery and the whole business, and it's your show. - Robertson Davies quote.
When you're a novelist, you're writing a play but you're acting all the parts, you're controlling the lights and the scenery and the whole business, and it's your show.
— Robertson Davies in The Paris Review

novelists

I see Canada as a country torn between a very northern, rather extraordinary, mystical spirit which it fears and its desire to present itself to the world as a Scotch banker. - Robertson Davies quote.
I see Canada as a country torn between a very northern, rather extraordinary, mystical spirit which it fears and its desire to present itself to the world as a Scotch banker.
— Robertson Davies The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies

Canada

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 quote.
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 The Merry Heart: Selections 1980-1995

action

An author is like a horse pulling a coal-cart down an icy hill; he ought to stop, but when he reflects that it would probably kill him to try, he goes right on, neighing and rolling his eyes. - Robertson Davies quote.
An author is like a horse pulling a coal-cart down an icy hill; he ought to stop, but when he reflects that it would probably kill him to try, he goes right on, neighing and rolling his eyes.
— Robertson Davies The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies

authors

If you're a writer, a real writer, you're a descendant of those medieval storytellers who used to go into the square of a town and spread a little mat on the ground and sit on it and beat on a bowl and say, "If you give me a copper coin I will tell you a golden tale." - Robertson Davies quote.
If you're a writer, a real writer, you're a descendant of those medieval storytellers who used to go into the square of a town and spread a little mat on the ground and sit on it and beat on a bowl and say, "If you give me a copper coin I will tell you a golden tale."
— Robertson Davies in The Paris Review

stories

Pornography is a cheat. It is an attempt to provide sexual experience by secondhand means.  Now sex is a thing which has to be experienced firsthand, if you are really going to understand it, and 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. It's not the same thing. - Robertson Davies quote.
Pornography is a cheat. It is an attempt to provide sexual experience by secondhand means.  Now sex is a thing which has to be experienced firsthand, if you are really going to understand it, and 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. It's not the same thing.
— Robertson Davies The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies

pornography