Quotes by Canadian Authors - Page 31

No one is too poor to give a smile - a gift, often, of greater consequence than any sum of money.
Vironika Tugaleva
Simon shook his head. ‘The Nazis in Germany…the Japanese here in Shanghai…Treating people as less than human because of the shape of their faces or the sound of their names. Sometimes it feels like the whole damn world is unraveling.
Daniel Kalla
The stuff of life turned out to be not a quivering, glowing, wondrous gel but a contraption of tiny jigs, springs, hinges, rods, sheets, magnets, zippers, and trapdoors, assembled by a data tape whose information is copied, downloaded and scanned.
Steven Pinker
I've come for one of your lasses," Sinclair said again. "A maid - she must be a virgin."Donal folded his arms over his chest. "What for? Pagan sacrifice?
Lecia Cornwall
the knowledge that change can be frightening, that responsibility can, but that the answer to that is not refusing to change or to accept responsibility.
Jo Walton
Creosote made Mandy think of the thrill of rushing through a garden sprinkler as a kid, of playing washer toss in the backyard, of spending nights in the neighbors’ huge in-ground swimming pool when she was twelve, throwing glow sticks in the turquoise water during Canada Day block parties. She thought of Jud for a moment, how he’d loved doing all those things when he was a kid, but how, as he got older, it was all about popularity, sports, a life of illusion… and without warning, a totally different kind of memory filled her mind – the dull feeling of her head hitting the concrete walls near the wood shop at her old high school, the sounds of kids laughing, the sharp smell of sawdust, the buzzing of electric sanders nearby, the sound of Jud laughing while he beat her up… without realizing it, she’d started crying noiselessly.
Rebecca McNutt
I saw my first angel.And it was you.
Tegan Quin
The Kingdom of Heaven wants to rest in our hearts.
Jared Brock
Sometimes when you get older—and I'm not talking about you, I'm talking generally, because everyone ages differently—things you think on and wish on start to seem real. And then you believe them, and before you know it they're a part of your history, and if someone challenges you on them and says they're not true—why, then you get offended.
Sara Gruen
There is simply no issue more important. Conservation is the preservation of human life on earth, and that, above all else, is worth fighting for.
Rob Stewart
One of the most difficult things I ever did was learn to support myself through my whole range of emotional experiences without running away.
Vironika Tugaleva
Right now universes are being created thrown together and destroyed the world over. Seven billion souls, each preoccupied with their own unique reality, each with a head full of memories, plans, learned knowledge and accumulated trivia; birthdays, telephone numbers, bus routes, passwords. Each one with somewhere to go, something they need to get done. They all have birth certificates and shoe sizes. Every single one has a story.
Graeme Cameron
Communication is a skill that you can learn. It's like riding a bicycle or typing. If you're willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of very part of your life.
Brian Tracy
Still, when I think of early friendships, I think not of people but of books. Books were my friends, and more often than not, the characters in the books were my imaginary friends, who stepped out of the pages and walked wth me to school or sat in bed with me, talking when I was meant to be asleep. What I mean is reading was my friends. And also I mean that I learned about friendship - patience, slowness, listening, care - from reading and from reading about friendship between people.
Erin Wunker
In the Conservative view you have 10 premiers and the Prime Minister as a kind of head waiter to take their orders.
Pierre Elliott Trudeau
I'm going to continue keeping an eye on him, Becca said. If he does anything shady, I'll report back. I swear I won't let anything bad happen to you if I can help it. He nodded as he collected the copper box and began to follow after Barnabas. The feeling is entirely mutual, Becca Hatcher.
Morgan Rhodes
(…) Real time is not a unitary strand distributing homogeneous units of past, present and future in a fixed empirical order, but is rather a complex, interactive, « thick » manifold of distinct yet integrated durations. p22
Sanford Kwinter
...strands of your hair and tendrils of the wind spin into nothingness the memories of that day...
John Geddes
This is surely the most significant of the elements that Tolkien brought to fantasy.... his arranged marriage between the Elder Edda and "The Wind in the Willows"--big Icelandic romance and small-scale, cozy English children's book. The story told by "The Lord of the Rings" is essentially what would happen if Mole and Ratty got drafted into the Nibelungenlied.
Adam Gopnik
...being with you was so easy and natural - there was no strain - I never had to guard my words...
John Geddes
I feel separated and cut off from the world around me, but occasionally I've felt that it was really a part of me, and I hope I'll have that feeling again, and that next time it won't go away. That's a dim, misty outline of the story that's told so often, of how man once lived in a golden age or a garden of Eden or the Hesperides ... how that world was lost, and how we some day may be able to get it back again. ... This story of the loss and regaining of identity is, I think, the framework of all literature.
Northrop Frye
In those days," continued Ishvar, "it seemed to me that that was all one could expect in life. A harsh road strewn with sharp stones and, if you were lucky, a little grain.""And later?""Later I discovered there were different types of roads. And a different way of walking on each.
Rohinton Mistry
My TV show enraged people. I had prostitutes on, and I treated them like real people.... I was fired from Maclean's after I wrote a piece called 'Let's Stop Hoaxing The Kids About Sex'. Now I'm the 'beloved author,' the 'beloved historian of Canada,' an icon. I get standing ovations.... I never set out to be a patriot or a popular historian. I just liked storytelling. [interview promoting Marching as to War (2002)]
Pierre Berton
I think I am a rare breed, a homosexual who doesn't like men.
Michel Tremblay
And don’t miss Frank Otto, the world’s most tattooed man! Held hostage in the darkest jungles of Borneo and tried for a crime he didn’t commit, and his punishment? Well, folks, his punishment is written all over his body in permanent ink!
Sara Gruen
And Beauvoir knew then the man was a saint. He's been touched by any number of medical men and women. All healers, all well intentioned, some kind, some rough. All made it clear they wanted him to live, but none had made him feel that his life was precious, was worth saving, was worth something.
Louise Penny
… between the irrational promoted in churches and the Darwinian pseudo-science taught in schools, a revolution in the way we understand reality is not only necessary but also long overdue.
Paul Greene
Prayer is the ascending vapor which supplies The showers of blessing and the stream that flows Through earth's dry places till on every side "The wilderness shall blossom as the rose."
A.B. Simpson
I made up three lists: Candidate's Accomplishments (real and imaginary), Accusations Against Opponent (including rumours, allegations, innuendos, and lies), and Empty Promises (the more improbable, the better). Then it was merely a matter of taking various combinations of items from the three lists, throwing in some bombast, tossing in a few local references, and, there it was - a brand new speech.
Rohinton Mistry
You could take the entirety of the common sense of humans and put it in the palm of your hand and still have room for your dick.
Anne Carson
Love you! Girl, you're in the very core of my heart. I hold you there like a jewel. Didn't I promise you I'd never tell you a lie? Love you! I love you with all there is of me to love. Heart, soul, brain. Every fibre of body and spirit thrilling to the sweetness of you. There's nobody in the world for me but you, Valancy.
L.M. Montgomery
Where do the words gowhen we have said them?
Margaret Atwood
So, if this were indeed my Final Hour, these would be my words to you. I would not claim to pass on any secret of life, for there is none, or any wisdom except the passionate plea of caring ... Try to feel, in your heart's core, the reality of others. This is the most painful thing in the world, probably, and the most necessary. In times of personal adversity, know that you are not alone. Know that although in the eternal scheme of things you are small, you are also unique and irreplaceable, as are all of your fellow humans everywhere in the world. Know that your commitment is above all to life itself.
Margaret Laurence
Her mother had once told her that one could run away from home, from husband, from children, from trouble, but it was impossible to run away from oneself. "You always have to take yourself with you," she said. And now, bending towards her mother, Hope wondered if in death you were finally able to run away from yourself. This might be death's gift. She knew that the thought wasn't terribly profound, but she was moved by the notion of completion and of escape.
David Bergen
YThat perfect letter. The wishbone, fork in the road, empty wineglass. The question we ask over and over. Why? Me with my arms outstretched, feet in first position. The chromosome half of us don't have. Second to last in the alphabet: almost there. Coupled with an L, let's make an adverb. A modest X, legs closed. Y or N? Yes, of course. Upside-down peace sign. Little bird tracks in the sand.Y, a Greet letter, joined the Latin alphabet after the Romans conquered Greece in the first century -- a double agent: consonant and vowel. No one used adverbs before then, and no one was happy.
Marjorie Celona
That’s because it is cruel, Obi-Wan,” Anakin snapped. “Cruel and unfeeling and unworthy of the Jedi Order.” He was so like Qui-Gon. This was like arguing with a ghost.
Karen Miller
I believe Western culture -- rule of law, universal suffrage, etc. -- is preferable to Arab culture: that's why there are millions of Muslims in Scandinavia, and four Scandinavians in Syria. Follow the traffic. I support immigration, but with assimilation.
Mark Steyn
Every time I watch a person awaken to their inner strength, I see what we’re made of, and we’re magnificent. We’re brilliant. We really are. We crave magic because we are magic. We crave power because we are pure power.
Vironika Tugaleva
People give you a hard time about being a kid at twelve. They didn't want to give you Halloween candy anymore. They said things like, "If this were the Middle Ages, you'd be married and you'd own a farm with about a million chickens on it." They were trying to kick you out of childhood. Once you were gone, there was no going back, so you had to hold on as long as you could.
Heather O'Neill
There's a lot to be said for the fellow who doesn't say it himself.
Maurice Switzer
I was not really surprised by what he was saying. A lot of people felt that way. Especially men. There was a quantity of things that men hated. Or had no use for, as they said. And that was exactly right. They had no use for it, so they hated it. Maybe it was the same way I felt about algebra- I doubted very much that I would ever find any use for it. But I didn't go so far as to want it wiped off the face of the earth for that reason.
Alice Munro
The road to hell was paved with the bones of men who did not know when to quit fighting.
Paulette Jiles
If I am a great man then a good many of the great men of history are frauds.
Bonar Law
Urban survival rule 22: Never annoy an armed man.
Kelley Armstrong
When we walk in the sunour shadows are like barges of silence.
Mark Strand
I've developed into quite a swan. I'm one of those people that will probably look better and better as I get older - until I drop dead of beauty.
Rufus Wainwright
His eyes searched hers. “I’d rather just be me. Feel comfortable in my own skin and be able to speak my mind without having to carry a damned thesaurus. Sure doesn’t seem worth giving up who you are to please others. Far as I’m concerned, they either like me or they don’t. Their choice.
Leah Braemel
Tis both a blessing a and a curse to desire a man in a physical manner.
Leigh Ann Edwards
Think of yourselves as pearls. We, sitting in our rows, eyes down, we make her salivate morally. We are hers to define, we must suffer her adjectives. I think about pearls. Pearls are congealed oyster spit.
Margaret Atwood
Art is a kind of mining," he said. "The artist a variety of prospector searching for the sparkling silver of meaning in the earth.
Jane Urquhart
The notion of "cause and effect" is sometimes useful in real life, and it can even be interesting in art, but I'm more interested in "cause and cause" or "effect and effect" or "and and and".
kevin mcpherson eckhoff
The idiot willingness to choose sides is what feeds the abattoir of history.
Steven Heighton
By not forgiving yourself you are limiting your ability to give to others.
Danielle Joworski
Any counseling that does not pursue spiritual formation through an intimate relationship with Jesus by faith as one of its chief goals is not worthy to be called BIBLICAL counseling.
James MacDonald
The [Five Second Rule] has many variations, including The Three Second Rule, The Seven Second Rule, and the extremely handy and versatile The However Long It Takes Me to Pick Up This Food Rule.
Neil Pasricha
Don't look for peace. Don't look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender
Eckhart Tolle
Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life's problems fall into place of their own accord.
J.I. Packer
Um. I’m really good at first aid. Like, the best.” He was the god of healing, after all. He’d better be good at fucking first aid!
Rosanna Leo
Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they've stolen.
Mort Sahl
I had this vision of the two of us holding hands or getting into some light petting behind shower curtains or up in the fencing aisle or some shit.
Susan Juby