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Quotes by Canadian Authors
"I hunger for filling in a world that is starved."
"The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defense, not God's, that the self-righteous should rush."
"Ger says that Kat has a tendency to push things to extremes, to go over the edge, merely from a juvenile desire to shock, which is hardly a substitute for wit. One of these days, he says, she will go way too far. Too far for him, is what he means."
"As many political writers have pointed out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that people are clones."
"There are animals we haven't stopped by. Don't think they're harmless. Life will defend itself no matter how small it is."
"This was not a good idea coming home for Christmas. I'm too old. Years ago, coming back from schools or trips, I always expected some sort of new perspective or fresh insight about the family on returning. That doesn't happen anymore-the days of revelation about my parents, at least, are over... its time to move on. I think we'd all appreciate that."
"We may call Eurydice forth from the world of the dead, but we cannot make her answer; and when we turn to look at her we glimpse her only for a moment, before she slips from our grasp and flees. As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes. Voices may reach us from it; but what they say to us is imbued with the obscurity of the matrix out of which they come; and, try as we may, we cannot always decipher them precisely in the clearer light of our own day."
"I've got money! Eve exclaimed in a frantic frenzy of hope, her eyes dancing wildly with the notion that there was some way out of this. "I mean, I don't know what use money is to the Grim Reaper, but I've got a ton of cash! It's in a hat box under my bed! I've got a bright red Lexus in the garage, I've got my engagement ring upstairs, it's real gold, there must be something we can trade off with. "You can't bribe me away, I'm afraid, said Mr. Azrael. "Money means nothing where I come from."
"We have to HIDE from each other because we think that we are the only ones BROKEN. We think we're the only ones whose original selves we ground up and smashed under the jack-booted heel of cultural lies and superstition, patriotism, war lust, war hunger, and a denial of AGGRESSION AGAINST CHILDREN THAT IS THE FOUNDATION OF CULTURE. Culture is everything that is NOT TRUE. If it's true, it's called 'math' or 'science' or 'facts'. Culture is the Stockholm syndrome we have with the historical lies that are convenient to the rules. We love the lies, because we don't think we can be loved if we don't."
"I don't like places or people either that haven't any faults. I think that a truly perfect person would be very uninteresting."
"There is no such thing as freedom on earth," he said. "Only different kinds of bondages. And comparative bondages. YOU think you are free now because you've escaped from a peculiarly unbreakable kind of bondage. But are you? You love me - THAT'S a bondage."
"Sweetie, you don't need to drive me to the brink of insanity... I'm close enough to walk!"
"The typical imperative from biology is not "Thou shalt... ," but "If ... then ... else."
"Trivers, pursuing his theory of the emotions to its logical conclusion, notes that in a world of walking lie detectors the best strategy is to believe your own lies. You can't leak your hidden intentions if you don't think they are your intentions. According to his theory of self-deception, the conscious mind sometimes hides the truth from itself the better to hide it from others. But the truth is useful, so it should be registered somewhere in the mind, walled off from the parts that interact with other people."
"If being in a relationship never causes you any grief, consider that maybe while you might physically be 'in' the relationship; mentally and emotionally you may have 'checked out' of the relationship. Relationships take an active presence in order to actually 'be' relationships. You can't 'care' without caring and caring isn't just for sunny days."
"Claire hated to say it, but she knew the answer, in her heart. "Because he feels something for me, and he wanted to give me a chance to live. Like him. With him. But I refused.Shane turned and looked at her, a blank expression on his face that turned quickly into . . . something else. Claire was glad Myrnin had gotten out while he still could. "Great, he said. "I knew it."It's not like that. He's- She shook her head in frustration. "It's not like he's in love with me or anything; it's more complicated than that. I don't even think he understands it, exactly."Yeah, he only loves you for your mind, Shane said..."
"Successful people play the part of being successful consistently in all that they do."
"Each heart is made of a different stone - no two feel alike nor break the same way ..."
"You're sad because you're sad.It's psychic. It's the age. It's chemical.Go see a shrink or take a pill,or hug your sadness like an eyeless dollyou need to sleep.Well, all children are sadbut some get over it.Count your blessings. Better than that,buy a hat. Buy a coat or a pet.Take up dancing to forget."
"That icy glass reduces your beauty - dims your fire - let me be your mirror..."
"Well, friend, I don't know about your tastes, but I tend to like it very bloody, Myrnin said. He shifted position, dragging Claire along like a rag doll without any effort at all. "Have we been introduced?"Probably not. Why, are you asking me out, sweetheart?"You're not my type, darling. Is this one yours?"No, Frank said, and looked at Shane, just in a quick flicker. "Let's say she's a friend of the family."
"I am sorry my decisions do not meet with your approval, but nevertheless, they are mine, and the consequences are also mine."
"Before this war is over,' [Walter] said - or something said through his lips - 'every man and woman and child in Canada will feel it - you, Mary, will feel it - feel it to your heart's core. You will weep tears of blood over it. The Piper has come - and he will pipe until every corner of the world has heard his awful and irresistible music. It will be years before the dance of death is over - years, Mary. And in those years millions of hearts will break."
"No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well. But despite everything, we didn't do too badly by one another, we did as well as most."
"Language always occurs in a context - you can speak Elizabethan words, but to speak the language you have to put on the mindset..."
"The Loneliness of the Military HistorianConfess: it's my professionthat alarms you.This is why few people ask me to dinner,though Lord knows I don't go out of my way to be scary.I wear dresses of sensible cutand unalarming shades of beige,I smell of lavender and go to the hairdresser's:no prophetess mane of mine,complete with snakes, will frighten the youngsters.If I roll my eyes and mutter,if I clutch at my heart and scream in horrorlike a third-rate actress chewing up a mad scene,I do it in private and nobody seesbut the bathroom mirror.In general I might agree with you:women should not contemplate war,should not weigh tactics impart."
"Inasmuch as I am a spiritual man, I do believe in God - I think that He created anorder for the world; I believe that, in constantly bombarding Him with requests for miracles,we're also asking that He unravel the fabric of the world. A world of continuous miracleswould be a cartoon, not a world."
"I think about how language works so I can best explain how language works."
"Christian hands never claspand He doesn't give gifts for gainbecause a gift can never stop being a gift - it is always meant to be given."
"What killed people wasn't a bullet, a blade, a fist to the face. What killed people was a feeling. Left too long. Sometimes in the cold, frozen. Sometimes buried and fetid. And sometimes on the shores of a lake, isolated. Left to grow old, and odd."
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