"Psychology plays a great part in my profession. I am rather a well-known criminal lawyer -- or have you… — Robertson Davies
"Psychology plays a great part in my profession. I am rather a well-known criminal lawyer -- or have you checked that, too? I have to know something about the way people function. Without a pretty shrewd psychological sense I couldn't do what I do, which is to worm things out of people they don't want to tell. That's your job, too, isn't it." "No. My job is to listen to people say things they very badly want to tell but are afraid nobody else will understand. You use psychology as an offensive weapon in the interest of justice. I use it as a cure. So keen a lawyer as yourself will appreciate the difference."
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More from this book
Unhappiness of the kind that is recognized and examined and brooded over is a spiritual luxury.
Like many people who are losing their grip, he mistook it for the coming of a new wisdom in himself.
During the First World War some of the English troops used to go over the top shouting, "Marmalade!" in humorously chivalrous voices, as if it were a heroic battle-cry. The Germans could never get used to it. They puzzled tirelessly to solve the mystery. Because a German cannot conceive that a man in battle would want to be funny, you see. But I think the English were dissembling the horror of their situation so that they would not notice how close they were to Death. Again, humour was essentially evil. If they had thought of the truth of their situation, they might not have gone over the top. And that might have been a good thing.
