26 Quotes by Michael Winter

I plan to live to be 98, so I'll be the guy at Dundas and Yonge flogging a box of mouldy novels.

How does the past ambush us? How can we be accurate about what happened, how can we be true to it? And can war be declared over? And can we ever evolve from the notion of war, of nations, of us versus them?

Before Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949, there was the same sort of talk of young men sacrificing their lives so that a country might grow - that somehow it had been a great nation-building success for Newfoundland.

If I didn't write sex scenes, all my characters would head to the kitchen and make cups of tea.

I approached writing a story for the CBC Literary Awards as a mercenary venture - $5,000 for one story, not bad. Now, how do you win it? Jurors are wading through skyscrapers of paper, looking for one story that stands out.

You can't go wrong with major life and death stories when it comes to a competition, so I thought I'd have a go at writing one.

The truth is, everybody falls into an incinerator of some measure or other. Not literally one. The question is what are you going to do with those bad times? Are you just going to let them gnaw at you?

The greatness of being an artist is the kind of ridiculous guffaw you can have at one's own misery. 'That was miserable! Now how can I write about it?'