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Quotes by Canadian Authors
"Well, I should like to see you go to college, Anne, but if you never do, don't grow discontented about it. We make our own lives wherever we are, after all... college can only help us do it more easily."
"I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. The pain is like an axe that chops my heart."
"Follow my finger." He moved it around, tracking my eye movements. "Any blurred vision?""Well I think I'm hallucinating, because I see a big talking pile of crap." - Joanne Baldwin."
"When we stop fearing failure, we start being artists."
"I was always the youngest person in class, skinny, scrawny, no good at sports. I asserted myself by being smart. But then I got to college and started to get C's and D's. That was fantastic. I no longer had to be the smartest person in the room."
"Fingers of wind combed the lake into ridges-icy palm prints glistened wherever it rested."
"Northeastern and most coastal states will vote for the candidate who is more closely aligned with international cooperation and engagement, secularism and science, gun control, individual freedom in culture and sexuality, and a greater role for the government in protecting the environment and ensuring economic equality."
"You either forgive a lover for abandoning you or you forgive God for taking them - either way you have to forgive..."
"The idea that the State is capable of solving social problems is now viewed with great skepticism - which foretells a coming change.As soon as skepticism is applied to the State, the State falls, since it fails at everything except increasing its power, and so can only survive on propaganda, which relies on unquestioning faith."
"If people think I am gay, yeah, hey that doesn't bother me. Not at all. What would people think? To me I am such a heterosexual guy. It doesn't even, I don't even think about it."
"If the United States leads a multinational force into Iraq without United Nations backing, Canada should fight beside its neighbour. We've gone from being a middle power to a muddle power on this one."
"You fantasize about me reading my poems to you - it doesn't work that way - I write down everything later - living is not an after-thought..."
"Want to play baseball?' she asked. Shane's eyes opened, and he stopped stroking her hair. "What?' "First base,' she said. "You're already there.' "I'm not running the bases.' "Well, you could at least steal second.' "Jeez, Claire. I used to distract myself with sports stats at times like these, but now you've gone and ruined it."
"I don't want to talk as much,' she said, denting her chin thoughtfully with her forefinger. 'It's nicer to think dear, pretty thoughts and keep them in one's heart, like treasures."
"If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, she'd be thinking, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time."
"It's merely writing, but you have to adjust your ear " I speak quietly " I sob " I whisper..."
"So this was the rest of his life. It felt like a party to which he'd been invited, but at an address he couldn't actually locate. Someone must be having fun at it, this life of his; only, right at the moment, it wasn't him."
"Cousin Jimmy thinks I did perfectly right. Cousin Jimmy would think I had done perfectly right if I had murdered Andrew and buried him in the Land of Uprightness. It's very nice to have one friend like that, though too many wouldn't be good for you."
"Knowledge is responsibility, which is why people resist knowledge."
"Things that are falling apart encourage me: whatever else, I'm in better shape than they are."
"Science is thus a paradigm for how we ought to gain knowledge-not the particular methods or institutions of science but its value system, namely to seek to explain the world, to evaluate candidate explanations objectively, and to be cognizant of the tentativeness and uncertainty of our understanding at any time."
"Everyone struggles to guard their heart from breaking, when they should desire to have a heart that breaks..."
"Irrational expectations are at the root of most human suffering."
"I don't smile. Why tempt her to friendship?"
"The Chorus Line:A Rope-Jumping Rhymewe are the maidsthe ones you killedthe ones you failedwe danced in airour bare feet twitchedit was not fairwith every goddess, queen, and bitchfrom there to hereyou scratched your itchwe did much lessthan what you didyou judged us badyou had the spearyou had the wordat your commandwe scrubbed the bloodof our deadparamours from floors, from chairsfrom stairs, from doors,we knelt in waterwhile you staredat our bare feetit was not fairyou licked our fearit gave you pleasureyou raised your handyou watched us fallwe danced on airthe ones you failedthe ones you killed."
"I wish I didn't have to think about you. You wanted to impress me; well, I'm not impressed, I'm disgusted...You wanted to make damn good and sure I'd never be able to turn over in bed again without feeling that body beside me, not there but tangible, like a leg that's been cut off. Gone but the place still hurts."
"Your moods and colors are my climate, not the changing face of the sky."
"Is that all time is - our perception of how quickly it does or does not pass?"
"Look, do you see that poem?' she said suddenly, pointing."
"It is claimed, but with what truth we cannot say, that there is a well-defined propaganda among the aliens of colour to bring about the degeneration of the white race."
"We really are creatures of a violent world, biologically speaking - watching violence and learning about it is one of our cognitive drives."
"I can't take the ring. It means-it means too much to you. It's all you have left of them."That's why it's better if you have it, he said, and held out the box, cupped in one hand."Because you can make it a better memory. I can barely look at this thing without seeing the past. I don't want to see the past anymore. I want to see the future. He didn't blink, and she felt the breath leave her body. "You're the future, Claire."
"But now she loved winter. Winter was beautiful "up back" - almost intolerably beautiful. Days of clear brilliance. Evenings that were like cups of glamour - the purest vintage of winter's wine. Nights with their fire of stars. Cold, exquisite winter sunrises. Lovely ferns of ice all over the windows of the Blue Castle. Moonlight on birches in a silver thaw. Ragged shadows on windy evenings - torn, twisted, fantastic shadows. Great silences, austere and searching. Jewelled, barbaric hills. The sun suddenly breaking through grey clouds over long, white Mistawis. Ice-grey twilights, broken by snow-squalls, when their cosy living-room, with its goblins of firelight and inscrutable cats, seemed cosier than ever. Every hour brought a new revalation and wonder."
"I've marked our sacred place not with stones - I've put it my art to keep it safe..."
"I'm sad now, the way we're talking is infinitely sad: faded music, faded paper flowers, worn satin, an echo of an echo. All gone away, no longer possible."
"It takes all sorts of people to make a world, as I've often heard, but I think there are some who could be spared,' Anne told her reflection in the east gable mirror that night."
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