Robertson Davies Quotes

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Robertson Davies

Profession : Novelist

Birth : August 28, 1913

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

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

Robertson Davies

Tristan and Isolde were lucky to die when they did. They'd have been sick of all that rubbish in a year.

Robertson Davies

Fanaticism is overcompensation for doubt.

Robertson Davies

The most original thing a writer can do is write like himself. It is also his most difficult task.

Robertson Davies

Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.

Robertson Davies

We wanted to meet him, for though we were neither of us naive people we had not wholly lost our belief that it is delightful to meet artists who have given us pleasure.

Robertson Davies

I never heard of anyone who was really literate or who ever really loved books who wanted to suppress any of them.

Robertson Davies

Literary critics, however, frequently suffer from a curious belief that every author longs to extend the boundaries of literary art, wants to explore new dimensions of the human spirit, and if he doesn't, he should be ashamed of himself.

Robertson Davies

The quality of what is said inevitably influences the way in which it is said, however inexperienced the writer.

Robertson Davies

The great book for you is the book that has the most to say to you at the moment when you are reading. I do not mean the book that is most instructive, but the book that feeds your spirit. And that depends on your age, your experience, your psychological and spiritual need.

Robertson Davies

Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them.

Robertson Davies

The greatest gift that Oxford gives her sons is, I truly believe, a genial irreverence toward learning, and from that irreverence love may spring.

Robertson Davies

What we call luck is the inner man externalized. We make things happen to us.

Robertson Davies