89 quotes found
Novelist · Canadian
Canadian novelist
“I was a talking lover, which most women hate.”
“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 civi...”
“Canada was settled in the main by people with a lower middle-class outlook and a respect rather than an affectionate familiarity for the things of the mind.”
“Whether you are really right or not doesn't matter it's the belief that counts.”
“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.”
“Men who look young act young and everlastingly harp on the fact that they are young-but who nevertheless think and act with a degree of caution what would be excessive in their grandfathers-are t...”
“If a man wants to be of the greatest possible value to his fellow-creatures let him begin the long solitary task of perfecting himself.”
“The love of truth lies at the root of much humour.”
“As a general thing people marry most happily with their own kind. The trouble lies in the fact that people usually marry at an age when they do not really know what their own kind is.”
“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.”
“If we seek the pleasures of love passion should be occasional and common sense continual.”
“A man must be obedient to the promptings of his innermost heart.”
“The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is in fact a return to the idealized past.”
“The most original thing a writer can do is write like himself. It is also his most difficult task.”
“The love of truth lies at the root of much humor.”
“Oho, now I know what you are. You are an advocate of Useful Knowledge.... Well, allow me to introduce myself to you as an advocate of Ornamental Knowledge. You like the mind to be a neat machine, e...”
“Before she continued her search she sat in his revolving desk chair, and wept for the passing of time, and the necessary death of the well-loved, wise old man.”
“Just about all men need a woman in one way or another, unless they’re very strange indeed. Tormenting you refreshes him. And you shouldn’t underestimate the gratitude all men feel for women’s beaut...”
“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 look at what is happening around us today and what has happened just ...”
“One learns one’s mystery at the price of one’s innocence.”
