Robertson Davies Quotes - Page 6

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• That is the operatic problem; the singer must keep up a big head of steam while trying to appear secretive, or seductive, or consumptive. Some ingenious composer should write an opera about a group of people who were condemned by a cruel god to scream all the time; it would be an instantaneous success, and a triumph of versimilitude.

  Robertson Davies

  Writing, People, Seductive

  Robertson Davies (1986). “The papers of Samuel Marchbanks”, Viking, 1986

  4 Copy quote

• The average politician goes through a sentence like a man exploring a disused mine shaft-blind, groping, timorous and in imminent danger of cracking his shins on a subordinate clause or a nasty bit of subjunctive.

  Robertson Davies

  Men, Average, Nasty

  Robertson Davies (1949). “The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks”, Clarke, Irwin

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• Great drama, drama that may reach the alchemical level, must have dimension and its relevance will take care of itself. Writing about AIDS rather than the cocktail set, or possibly the fairy kingdom, will not guarantee importance. . . . The old comment that all periods of time are at an equal distance from eternity says much, and pondering on it will lead to alchemical theatre while relevance becomes old hat.

  Robertson Davies

  Distance, Drama, Writing

  Robertson Davies (1999). “Happy Alchemy: On the Pleasures of Music and the Theatre”, Penguin Group USA

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• Not enough attention is paid to the negative side of fashion. Great effort is exerted to make people look smart, but somebody should face the fact that a lot of people never will be smart, and that they should be given some assistance in maintaining their fascinating dowdiness.

  Robertson Davies

  Fashion, Smart, People

  Robertson Davies (1949). “The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks”, Clarke, Irwin

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• I do not really like vacations. I much prefer an occasional day off when I do not feel like working. When I am confronted with a whole week in which I have nothing to do but enjoy myself I do not know where to begin. To me, enjoyment comes fleetingly and unheralded; I cannot determinedly enjoy myself for a whole week at a time.

  Robertson Davies

  Vacation, Days Off, Week

  Robertson Davies (1949). “The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks”, Clarke, Irwin

  14 Copy quote

• It used to be fashionable for authors to have their pictures taken with dogs, but the dogs always looked like models hired from an advertising agency, and probably were.

  Robertson Davies

  Dog, Taken, Agency

  "Mehitabel". 1959.

  4 Copy quote

• Whoever declares a child to be "delicate" thereby crowns and anoints a tyrant.

  Robertson Davies

  Children, Tyrants, Crowns

  Robertson Davies (1996). “The Cunning Man”, Penguin Group USA

  4 Copy quote

• It seemed to me as if the stones sang, in the strangest voices, in the language of Ultima Thule.

  Robertson Davies

  Voice, Stones, Ultima

  Robertson Davies (1999). “Happy Alchemy: On the Pleasures of Music and the Theatre”, Penguin Group USA

  6 Copy quote

• No people in the world can make you feel so small as the English.

  Robertson Davies

  People, World, Feels

  6 Copy quote

• The Wild Hunt is known in all Celtic countries; it is a huntsman with a pack of hounds who is seen or heard to rush through the country. Those who see him are doomed to die. The writer heard the Wild Hunt quite distinctly one night in Wales several years ago, but has not suffered any ill effects from it as yet.

  Robertson Davies

  Country, Night, Years

  "High Spirits: A Collection of Ghost Stories". Book by Robertson Davies, 1982.

  6 Copy quote

• I think of the 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

  Writing, Thinking, Stories

  "Conversations with Robertson Davies".

  7 Copy quote

• The egotist is all surface; underneath is a pulpy mess and a lot of self-doubt. But the egoist may be yielding and even deferential in things he doesn't consider important; in anything that touches his core he is remorseless.

  Robertson Davies

  Self, Doubt, Important

  7 Copy quote

• May I make a suggestion, hoping it is not an impertinence? Write it down: write down what you feel. It is sometimes a wonderful help in misery.

  Robertson Davies

  Sad, Depression, Writing

  Robertson Davies (1999). “"For Your Eye Alone": Letters 1976-1995”, McClelland & Stewart

  9 Copy quote

• Female beauty is an important Minor Sacrament which cannot be received too often; I am not at all sure that neglect of it does not constitute a sin of some kind.

  Robertson Davies

  Beauty, Kindness, Important

  "The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks".

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• These matters require what I think of as the Shakespearean cast of thought. That is to say, a fine credulity about everything, kept in check by a lively skepticism about everything.... It keeps you constantly alert to every possibility.

  Robertson Davies

  Thinking, Healthy, Matter

  Robertson Davies (1991). “Murther and Walking Spirits”, Penguin Group USA

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• The drama may be called that part of theatrical art which lends itself most readily to intellectual discussion: what is left is theater.

  Robertson Davies

  Art, Drama, Intellectual

  Robertson Davies (1961). “The Personal Art: Reading to Good Purpose”, London : Secker & Warburg

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• The attributes of God have been carefully explored. But the Devil's attributes have been left vague. I think I've found one of them. It is he who puts the prices on things." "Doesn't God put a price on things?" "No. One of his attributes is magnanimity. But the Devil is a setter of prices, and a usurer, as well. You buy from him at an agreed price, but the payments are all on time, and the interest is charged on the whole of the principal, right up to the last payment, however much of the principal you think you have paid off in the meantime.

  Robertson Davies

  Thinking, Devil, Lasts

  5 Copy quote

• You never see what you want to see, forever playing to the gallery.

  Robertson Davies

  Truth, Forever, Want

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• I came at last to a recognition of myself as, in part, a Tom Sawyer who wanted everything done according to the rules of romantic fiction, and complicated simple solutions with his absurd adolescent, book-born nonsense.

  Robertson Davies

  Book, Simple, Fiction

  4 Copy quote

• To instruct calls for energy, and to remain almost silent, but watchful and helpful, while students instruct themselves, calls for even greater energy. To see someone fall (which will teach him not to fall again) when a word from you would keep him on his feet but ignorant of an important danger, is one of the tasks of the teacher that calls for special energy, because holding in is more demanding than crying out.

  Robertson Davies

  Teacher, Fall, Feet

  Robertson Davies (1992). “The Cornish Trilogy”, Penguin Group USA

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• Women say . . . that if men had to have babies there would soon be no babies in the world. . . . I have sometimes wished that some clever man would actually have a baby in some new labor-saving way; then all men could take it up, and one of the oldest taunts in the world would be stilled forever.

  Robertson Davies

  Baby, Clever, Men

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• 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.

  Robertson Davies

  Passionate, Actors, Welcome

  Robertson Davies (1961). “The Personal Art: Reading to Good Purpose”, London : Secker & Warburg

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• I don't suppose God laughs at the people who think He doesn't exist. He's above jokes. But the devil isn't. That's one of his most endearing qualities.

  Robertson Davies

  Thinking, People, Laughing

  Robertson Davies (1976). “World of wonders”, Penguin Books, 1977

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• "Civilization rests on two things," said Hitzig; "the discovery that fermentation produces alcohol, and voluntary ability to inhibit defecation. And I put it to you, where would this splendidly civilized occasion be without both?"

  Robertson Davies

  Discovery, Civilization, Two

  "The Cornish Trilogy".

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• 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.

  Robertson Davies

  Men, Greed, Meals

  Robertson Davies (1949). “The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks”, Clarke, Irwin

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