Robertson Davies

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

The young are often accused of exaggerating their troubles they do so, very often, in the hope of making some impression upon the inertia and the immovability of the selfish old.

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

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

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

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

Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don't know what they are conserving.

I do not 'get' ideas ideas get me.

Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it.

A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life.

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

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.

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

Only a fool expects to be happy all the time.

Other-directed appears to be nothing more than a sociological term for weak-minded

Art is wine and experience is the brandy we distill from it

Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog fewer when pursued by a mad woman only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion.

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

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

Pessimism is a very easy way out when you're considering what life really is, because pessimism is a short view of life - If you take a long view, I do not see how you can be pessimistic about the future of man or the future of the world

In my experience tact is usually worse than the brutalities of truth

Do not suppose, however, that I intend to urge a diet of classics on anybody. I have seen such diets at work. I have known people who have actually read all, or almost all, the guaranteed Hundred Best Books. God save us from reading nothing but the best.

The people who fear humor - and there are many -are suspicious of its power to present things in unexpected lights to question received opinions and to suggest unforeseen possibilities

A Librettist is a mere drudge in the world of opera.

He was a genius - that is to say, a man who does superlatively and without obvious effort something that most people cannot do by the uttermost exertion of their abilities.