The Quotable Robertson Davies: The Wit and Wisdom of the Master

Family Who really knows his father, or his mother? In our personal dramas they play older, supporting roles, and we are always centre stage, in the limelight. (Conor Gilmartin, narr.) Murther & Walking Spirits One's family is made up of supporting players in one's personal drama. One never supposes that they starred in some possibly gaudy and certainly deeply felt show of their own. (Hugh McWearie) Murther & Walking Spirits Nobody is so ready to belittle you as your own family. (Apollo) A Masque of Aesop Fashions Nothing grows old-fashioned so fast as modernity. High Spirits There are fashions in anxiety and even in degradation. A Voice from the Attic Fate The condition of a vulgarian is that he never expects anything good or bad that happens to him to be the result of his own personality; he always thinks it's Fate, especially if it's bad. The only people who make any sense in the world are those who know that whatever happens to them has its roots in what they are. (Solomon Bridgetower) Tempest-Tost A man's fate is his own, more than he knows. We attract what we are. The Lyre of Orpheus If you don't drink your tea while it's hot, you may expect a cold fortune. (Benoni Richards) A Jig for the Gypsy There is no armour against Fate. One Half of Robertson Davies Alas, how puny are our best efforts to avert a foreordained event! One Half of Robertson Davies One must not quarrel with one's fate. The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks Prophecy consists of carefully bathing the inevitable in the eerie light of the impossible, and then being the first to announce it. Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack Friendship Many fine things are written about friendship, and there's a general superstition that everybody is capable of friendship, and gets it, like love. But lots of people never know love, except quite mildly; and most of them never know friendship, except in quite a superficial way. Terribly demanding thing, friendship. Most of us have to put up with acquaintanceship. (Sir Benedict Domdaniel) A Mixture of Frailties He's an old friend. And we don't always choose our old friends, you know; sometimes we're just landed with them. (Professor Clement Hollier) The Rebel Angels Genius Geniuses are not people to make a woman happy. (Amy Nelson) A Mixture of Frailties He was a genius that is to say, a man who does superlatively and without obvious effort something that most people cannot do by the uttermost exertion of their abilities. (Dunstan Ramsay, narr.) Fifth Business Genius is the only true aristocracy. (Dr. Gunilla Dahl-Soot) The Lyre of Orpheus Good taste is, after all, a thing that any donkey can learn; the effects of genius are not so easily mastered. Renown at Stratford Guilt A recognition of the guilt in oneself is a necessity to psychological wholeness not goodness, but wholeness, which is a larger concept. And the ambiguity of guilt the apparent good deed that brings an evil consequence, and the seeming evil deed that bears good fruit presents a philosophical problem that few of us are able to meet and vanquish. The Mirror of Nature Hypocrisy is fertile soil for guilt. The MirrShaw, James Channing is the author of 'The Quotable Robertson Davies: The Wit and Wisdom of the Master', published 2005 under ISBN 9780771080883 and ISBN 0771080883.