404 Quotes by Robertson Davies

For I was a collaborator with Destiny, not one who put a pistol to its head and demanded particular treasures

The reclusive man who marries the gregarious woman, the timid woman who marries the courageous man, the idealist who marries the realist we can all see these unions: the marriages in which tenderness meets loyalty, where generosity sweetens moroseness, where a sense of beauty eases some aridity of the spirit, are not so easy for outsiders to recognize; the parties themselves may not be fully aware of such elements in a good match.

The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact a return to the idealized past

Sometimes there was a serious article on a hot topic, and I especially remember one by a bishop headed "Is Nudity Salacious?" The bishop thought it need not be, if encountered in the proper spirit, but he gave a lot of enlightening examples of conditions under which it might be, in his word, "inflammatory." There wasn't much nudity in our neck of the woods, and I enjoyed that article tremendously.

Imagination is a good horse to carry you over the ground -- not a flying carpet to set you free from probability.

It is lost, lovely child, somewhere in the ragbag that I laughingly refer to as my memory.

I heard his library burned down and both books were destroyed - and one of them hadn't even been colored in yet.

Speakers' nerves affect them in various ways. Some tremble, some become frenzied. I lose all confidence, and suffer from a leaden oppression that makes me wonder why I ever agreed to speak at all; the Tomb and the Conqueror Worm seem preferable to delivering the stupid and piffling speech I have so carefully prepared.

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.