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Quotes by Canadian Authors
"You're getting everyone's point of view at the same time, which, for me, is the perfect state for a novel: a cubist state, the cubist novel."
"The counter-argument would be, so what if my sexual relationships are superficial, one can still have satisfying and rewarding relationships with friends, or parents, or siblings, or whatever."
"When you're in the muck you can only see muck. If you somehow manage to float above it, you still see the muck but you see it from a different perspective. And you see other things too. That's the consolation of philosophy."
"I see technology as being an extension of the human body."
"My developing sense was that the foundation of a story is an emotional foundation. If a story does not work emotionally, it does not work at all."
"Jesus gives his life for the congregation, not the other way around."
"Trying to break into the horror market seemed natural."
"All stereotypes turn out to be true. This is a horrifying thing about life. All those things you fought against as a youth: you begin to realize they're stereotypes because they're true."
"Anne was always glad in the happiness of her friends, but it is sometimes a little lonely to be surrounded everywhere by happiness that is not your own."
"I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy."
"Mental attitude and concentration are the keys to pitching."
"Whether the process proves to be Kyoto or something else, let's acknowledge the urgency of global warming."
"She came out of her reverie with a deep sigh and looked at him with a dreamy gaze of a soul that had been wandering afar, star-led."
"People who are different from other people are always called peculiar,' said Anne."
"It is said that a neo-conservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality."
"Soap and water and common sense are the best disinfectants."
"In Canada, women's rights are a vital part of our effort to build a society of real equality - not just for some, but for all Canadians. A society in which women no longer encounter discrimination nor are shut out from opportunities open to others."
"To me, horror is when I see somebody lying. I mean a person I know. A friend. And he's telling me something that I accept. And then suddenly, as he or she is telling it, there's something that gives them away. They're not telling me the truth."
"They said they wanted a lot of feathers, glitter, colourful colours. A costume. So I had a lady here in Calgary make it. She just kind of put together what I had in mind."
"Science gives us a powerful vocabulary, and it is impossible to produce a vocabulary with which one can only say nice things."
"There are days when I can hardly make it out of bed. I find it an effort to speak. I measure progress in steps, the next one and the next one, as far as the bathroom. These steps are major accomplishments. I focus on taking the cap off the toothpaste, getting the brush up to my mouth. I have difficulty lifting my arm to do even that. I feel I am without worth, that nothing I can do is of any value, least of all to myself."
"You believed you could transcend the body as you aged, she tells herself. You believed you could rise above it, to a serene, nonphysical realm. But it's only through ecstasy you can do that, and ecstasy is achieved through the body itself. Without the bone and sinew of wings, no flight. Without that ecstasy you can only be dragged further down by the body, into its machinery. Its rusting, creaking, vengeful, brute machinery."
"The joke newspaper, it says Canada abandons the monarchy."
"More than 1.1 million taxpayers in Pennsylvania will enjoy a lower tax rate, more than 1.4 million married couples will benefit from the reduction in the marriage penalty, and more than 1.1 million parents will have the advantage of an increased child tax credit."
"But most Canadians have recognized to a greater or lesser extent that despite much of the so-called progress of the affluent society, essential ingredients to a meaningful life seem to be either entirely lacking, or at best, difficult to grasp."
"He started to touch the mechanism under the keyboard, then pulled his hand back with a snap."Ah," he said. "Must deactivate the security....Turn around, please.""What?""Turn around, Claire. It's a secure password!""You have GOT to be kidding.""Why ever would I joke about that? Please turn."
"Every month there is a moon, gigantic, round, heavy, an omen. IT transits, pauses, continues on and passes out of sight, and I see despair coming towards me like famine. To feel that empty, again, again. I listen to my heart, wave upon wave, salty and red, continuing on and on, marking time."
"Myrnin said softly. "And how is it that you do not understand that HERE, in THIS place, this girl belongs to me, not to you?"
"An old walrus-faced waiter attended to me; he had the knack of pouring the coffee and the hot milk from two jugs, held high in the air, and I found this entrancing, as if he were a child's magician. One day he said to me - he had some English - "Why are you sad?""I'm not sad," I said, and began to cry. Sympathy from strangers can be ruinous."You should not be sad," he said, gazing at me with his melancholy, leathery walrus eyes. "It must be the love. But you are young and pretty, you will have time to be sad later." The French are connoisseurs of sadness, they know all the kinds. This is why they have bidets. "It is criminal, the love," he said, patting my shoulder. "But none is worse."
"Is the writer a prophet or priest - does he show the truth or serve the truth?..."
"You can never rely on musicians. I quit high school at one point to make a go of it with this band and we kept breaking up. So I went back to school."
"The time I save setting up and cleaning up probably balances out by the time I spend on output."
"I don't say Valancy deliberately murdered these lovers as she outgrew them. One simply faded away as another came. Things are very convenient in this respect in Blue Castles."
"That was my fear, which is why when I was took over a book, I was always trying to tweak it a little bit so that it looked like I was trying to add something instead of keeping the status quo."
"There is something powerful in the whispering of obscenities, about those in power. There's something delightful about it, something naughty, secretive, forbidden, thrilling. It's like a spell, of sorts. It deflates them, reduces them to the common denominator where they can be dealt with."
"Another thing: despite my youthful appearance, I am quite capable of making decisions."
"Despair is a free man-hope isa slave."
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