“An artist has to take life as he finds it. Life by itself is formless wherever it is. Art must give it form.”

“The Ottawa river flows out of Protestant Ontario into Catholic Quebec.”

“The trouble with this whole country is that it's divided up into little puddles with big fish in each one of them.”

“The Greeks who knew everything understood that without the orgy there is no middle ground between bedlam and Toronto ... we need the healing grace of the orgy in this country.”

“The farmer's way of saving money: to be owed by someone he trusted.”

“A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat.”

“Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life's cruelest irony.”

“The sense of tragedy - according to Aristotle - comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I'm getting at? People are drawn deepe...”

“The irony of life is that those who wear masks often tell us more truths than those with open faces.”

“Herein lies the supreme wisdom, human and divine; and the task of philosophy consists in teaching men to submit joyously to Necessity which hears nothing and is indifferent to all.”

“I did not grasp all these details - and many more - right away. They came to my notice with time and as a result of necessity. I would be in the direst of dire straits, facing a bleak future, when ...”

“Necessity has no law.”

“Tragedy is like a strong acid - it dissolves away all but the very gold of truth.”

“It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in suchan inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, theirabsolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire l...”

“Receive what cheer you may. The night is long that never finds the day.”