List of Robertson Davies Quotes

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.

I Think We're Living In An Age Which Despises Humanity And Despises Bravery And Doesn't Need Bravery Because Modern Warfare Has Rather Gone Beyond Bravery. It Is A Kind Of Warfare Where People Are Fighting Enemies They Never See, Killing People Of Whom They Know Nothing.

Clarity Is Not A Characteristic Of The Human Spirit.

One Can Always Tell It's Summer When One Sees School Teachers Hanging About The Streets Idly, Looking Like Cannibals During A Shortage Of Missionaries.

Very Few [doctors] Are Men Of Science In Any Very Serious Sense; They're Men Of Technique.

Here Are Some Homosexuals Whom We Would Do Well To Take Seriously.

Canada, Having Few Indigenous Prejudices, Has Been Compelled To Import Them From Elsewhere, Duty-free, And It Is The Rare Canadian Who Is Not Shaken, At Some Time In The Year, By "old, Unhappy, Far-off Things / And Battles Long Ago", Like Wordsworth's Solitary Reaper. We Are A Nation Of Immigrants, And Not Happy In Our Minds.

I Would Not For A Moment Have You Suppose That I Am One Of Those Idiots Who Scorns Science, Merely Because It Is Always Twisting And Turning, And Sometimes Shedding Its Skin, Like The Serpent That Is [the Doctors'] Symbol.

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.

A Big Man Is Always Accused Of Gluttony, Whereas A Wizened Or Osseous Man Can Eat Like A Refugee At Every Meal, And No One Ever Notices His Greed.

Let People Alone. Let Them Find Their Way. Let Them Find Their Level And You May Sometimes Be Delighted And Astonished At The Extraordinary High Level To Which They'll Rise If They're Let Alone.

In India It Is Regarded As A Good Idea To Dart In Front Of An Oncoming Car, For The Car Is Sure To Kill The Evil Spirits Who Are Pursuing You, And All The Rest Of Your Life You Will Have Good Luck.