Robertson Davies

Late November can be a romantic time of year in Canada; the bare trees, the frosty air and whirling winds, the eerie light which sometimes persists for the whole of the day and then sinks, shortly after four, into steely darkness, dispose me to Gothic thoughts.

A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life.

I was offered a lot of money for my story, "John Parlabane as I Knew Him", and the services of a ghost to write it up from my verbal confession. (It was assumed that, as a student, I would not be capable of coherent expression.)

Important rule of professorcraft: never show resentment at a student insult — wait and get them later.

What we call luck is the inner man externalized

Like a real academic, she was wary of people outside the academic world — 'laymen' they called them — who seemed to know a lot. Knowledge was for professionals of knowledge.

It is a firm critical principle that nobody living is quite as good as somebody dead.

"I am not convinced such a small library will know how to deal with it," said Jubilei. "Can you guarantee that it will be preserved, page by page, between sheets of acid-free paper?"

I thought of Parlabane's squalid mess of typescript, and smiled a private smile.

A Philistine is someone who is content to live in a wholly unexplored world.

So what was I to do? To go backward was base: to go forward an adventure into splendour and terror. But it was forward I must go.

The art of the quoter is to know when to stop.

They did not murmur the [ Canadian ] national prayer: "O God, grant me mediocrity and comfort; protect me from the radiance of Thy light."