Robertson Davies

Once a man showed me a great treasure of his family; it was a handkerchief which somebody, on 30 January 1649, had dipped in the blood of the executed English King Charles I. It was a disgusting, rusty rag. But if you and I and Roly here had the money and the right people, we could fake up an execution of King Charles that would make people weep. Which is nearer to the truth? The rag, or our picture?

Pass the buck. It's the secret of life. You can't fight every battle and dry every tear. Whenever you're dealing with something that you don't really care about, pass the buck. You've got me to do your music; that's what you wanted, isn't it? Very well then, let Mrs Forrester clean up the mess.

"What would you do if you were me?" Cobbler pondered for a moment. "Well," he said, "I suppose if I were you -- that's to say a somewhat inert chap, half content to be the football of fate -- I'd go right on doing whatever I was doing at the moment, and hope the whole thing would blow over."

What school performance of anything is ever less than a triumph?

To be cynical is not the same as avoiding illusion, for cynicism is just another kind of illusion. All formulas for meeting life -- even many philosophies -- are illusion.

He was funny, or ironic, or whatever you want to call it, about the World of Wonders. We all know why people talk in that way; if we are amusing about our trials in the past, it is as if we say, "See what I overcame - now I treat it as a joke - see how strong I have been and ask yourself if you could have overcome what I overcame?"

A Library goes on as far as thought can reach.

"Dreams do not foretell the future. They reveal states of mind in which the future may be implicit."

I was embarrassed to be such a fool in a situation that I had told myself and other people countless times I would never submit to -- talking to a psychiatrist, ostensibly seeking help, but without any confidence that he could give it. I have never believed these people can do anything for an intelligent man he can't do for himself. I have known many people who leaned on psychiatrists, and every one of them was a leaner by nature, who would have leaned on a priest if he had lived in an age of faith, or leaned on a teacup reader or an astrologer if he had not enough money to afford the higher hokum.

The problem for a Paracelsian physician like me is that I see diseases as disguises in which people present me with their wretchedness.

If I had the power to cast curses, I should rank the curse of being enviable very high.

"Can you tell me the time of the last complete show?"

"You have the wrong number."

"Eh? Isn't this the Odeon?"

I decide to give a Burtonian answer.

"No, this is the Great Theatre of Life. Admission is free but the taxation is mortal. You come when you can, and leave when you must. The show is continuous. Good-night."