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Quotes by Canadian Authors
"How much misery . . . how much needless despair has been caused by a series of biological mismatches, a misalignment of the hormones and pheromones? Resulting in the fact that the one you love so passionately won't or can't love you. As a species we're pathetic in that way: imperfectly monogamous. If we could only pair-bond for life, like gibbons, or else opt for total guilt-free promiscuity, there'd be no more sexual torment. Better plan - make it cyclical and also inevitable, as in the other mammals. You'd never want someone you couldn't have."
"Far more has been accomplished for the welfare and progress of mankind by preventing bad actions than by doing good ones."
"The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely."
"It's always discouraging when you don't have things go your way. They are frustrated just like the rest of us."
"It's not enough to fill your head with wondrous ideas-you must initiate action."
"If you improve a teacher's self-esteem, confidence, communication skills or stress levels, you improve that teacher's overall effectiveness across the curriculum."
"I didn't speak English until I came to Pittsburgh."
"I was very disappointed that Denzel didn't win Best Actor for The Hurricane because I thought he deserved it."
"After 13 years, I couldn't accept to be number two."
"People never like pollution, it has become very wrong to like pollution at all. But just like there are good and bad things about people, there are good and bad things about pollution. If people were pollution we would get rid of anyone who was different, anyone who was considered an inconvenience, but we'd be getting rid of a life, a lot of lives, because we didn't like them. If pollution was a person would we still be trying to get rid of it? Would we have environmentalists still complaining and protesting and trying to get rid of all pollution?"
"I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business."
"When the late Bishop was appointed, about thirty-two years ago, to diffuse the light of the Gospel through this extensive portion of His Majesty's dominions, it was even a greater spiritual, than a natural wilderness."
"Put simply, I want to treat my readers as partners and not crooks. There is no future in calling your most active promoters crooks."
"I, Alexander B. Campbell, make this statement of the cause of my death to relieve the coroner of the necessity of an inquest, and also let my friends know the motive that led me to take my own life."
"I believe in freedom of speech, but I believe we should also have the right to comment on freedom of speech."
"The British electors will not vote for a man who does not wear a hat."
"We teach teens what we think they ought to know, and we never tell them what they want to know."
"Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be bad government, which sooner or later becomes autocratic government."
"Temperance is essential, if the services of men and women are to be employed to the best and most useful effect according, to the physical capacity and ability of each. Nothing less will assure a total effort."
"Will you permit the sacred fire of liberty, brought by your fathers from the venerable temples of Britain, to be quenched and trodden out on the simple altars they have raised?"
"The responsibility of a minister is to step aside when there is a criminal investigation of the department. That protects the propriety of Parliament and of responsible government."
"We had built up a team in Edmonton that really knew who each other was from a personal standpoint and from a professional standpoint. Our nucleus had stayed together for a long time."
"I think that's why I like baseball. There's something great about it - you're young, the pitcher's young and he's got this great arm, and he doesn't really realize anything about strategy."
"The only difference is that religion is much better organised and has been around much longer, but it's the same story with different characters and different costumes."
"I like working with actresses, and I like women a lot, not for obvious reasons, but just in that that there's so much about what they bring to the scene that keeps it so interesting. Their instincts are so different, and they never explain them to you."
"I don't make films to win prizes. I make films to make films."
"Try as you might, you'll never be able to please an environmentalist. You can stop using coal to heat your house, you can stop throwing out bottles and cans, you can have every factory in Canada shut down and you can buy only organic gluten-free non-GMO food, you can give up your favorite station wagon for a weird electric hybrid, you can stop developing film and buy a never-ending cycle of digital cameras, you can give up your job at a refinery or mill, and they'll still get after you for not enjoying yourself while doing so."
"Winters are a desolate time where all senses are wiped away, and here in Canada, this is especially true. All smells are sucked clean from the air, leaving only a harsh, icy crispness. Colours are stripped away, leaving a stark white landscape, a sky which stays black at night and gray in the day, a world of only three shades. Stay outside too long, and your hands will get so cold that they'll go numb and turn red, like the claws of a lobster. During a whiteout, even sight itself is reduced to nothingness."
"The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany."
"Today, I guess I give a lot more thought to the roles before I sign them."
"Be easy with yourself. Be gentle. Remember to be your own friend. We all make mistakes. We all say silly things now and then. It's also OK to change your mind. Don't replay the moments. Don't torture yourself with critique and negative self-talk. The expectation is not perfection, it's to keep moving forward. Keep trying. Keep learning and growing. You'll get a lot further with a positive attitude. Love will open and grow you. Love will encourage you. No one can love you more than you can love yourself. Be your own ally. Learn to help not hinder yourself."
"I learned later, just as a footnote, that the World Assembly of Youth was a CIA front."
"But with my last film, Spider it was agony. The money was always disappearing, nobody got paid, it was very difficult - and it's very distracting from the process of making the movie, of course. So I think things have been getting harder and harder."
"I began even as a boy to realize how wide the world can be for a man of free intelligence."
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