Quotes by Canadian Authors - Page 41

The way you give your name to others is a measure of how much you like and respect yourself.
Brian Tracy
Scott: I don't think I'm ready to be a grown-up.Kim: I don't think you are either, buddy. But hey, you'll get it. It just takes practice.
Bryan Lee O'Malley
A murder was never about brawn, it began and ended in the brain and the brain could justify anything.
Louise Penny
Again Sam’s genitals became rock, and this astonished him as much as anything. Through Franz, he was becoming the stone Earth; the final border separating him from the planet was disappearing. And this transformation to rock was fuelled by desire, the most ephemeral thing on Earth.
Barry Webster
Life is not a sport. Life is not math. There is no final end goal and there is no right answer. Just because your truth does not match someone else's truth does not make either of you wrong. Life is not a zero sum game. If I am right, that does not make you wrong. If you are right, that does not make me wrong either. A jar of vinegar can sit in a cupboard beside a box of baking soda peacefully, and we can allow those who disagree with us to exist alongside us without reacting to them. There is nothing to prove. There is enough room in the world for all of us.
Vironika Tugaleva
We understand more than we know.
Margaret Atwood
Your relationship to yourself is and always will be directly reflected in all your relationships with others.
Vironika Tugaleva
With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not.
Sara Gruen
I love you. You're the only one." She isn't the first woman he's ever said that to. He shouldn't have used it up so much earlier in his life, he shouldn't have treated it like a tool, a wedge, a key to open women. By the time he got around to meaning it, the words had sounded fraudulent to him and he'd been ashamed to pronounce them.
Margaret Atwood
Courage is your natural setting. You do not need to become courageous, but rather peel back the layers of self-protective, limiting beliefs that keep you small.
Vironika Tugaleva
A love story is not about those who lost their heart but about those who find that sullen inhabitant who, when it is stumbled upon, means the body can fool no one, can fool nothing—not the wisdom of sleep or the habit of social graces. It is a consuming of oneself and the past.
Michael Ondaatje
One-on-one revenge was common in foraging societies, and kin-against-kin blood feuds were common in tribal societies that had not been pacified by a colonial or national government, particularly if they had an exaggerated culture of manly honor.
Steven Pinker
It’s not the win that matters so much as recognizing and respecting its value.
Lorii Myers
my soul has shadows – nooks and crannies where griefs, like cobwebs, collect
John Geddes
Many a man in love with a dimple makes the mistake of marrying the whole girl.
Stephen Leacock
Wisteria hangs over the eaves like clumps of ghostly grapes. Euphorbia's pale blooms billow like sea froth. Blood grass twists upward, knifing the air, while underground its roots go berserk, goosing everything in their path. A magnolia, impatient with vulvic flesh, erupts in front of the living room window. The recovering terrorist--holding a watering can filled with equal parts fish fertilizer and water, paisley gloves right up over her freckled forearms, a straw hat with its big brim shading her eyes, old tennis shoes speckled with dew--moves through her front garden. Her face, she tells herself, like a Zen koan. The look of one lip smiling.
Zsuzsi Gartner
It is not possible to understand the NT concept of the church if we overlook the numerous metaphors used to portray it. The church is Christ's body, a temple, a family, a royal priesthood, twelve tribes, the chosen race, Abraham's children, the new creation, the bride of Christ, and so on. Bible readers should be careful not to construct their theology of the church on a single metaphor.
David Ewert
Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there?But am I talking too much? People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I didn't talk? If you say so I'll stop. I can STOP when I make up my mind to it, although it's difficult.
L.M. Montgomery
...and specimens like this confirmed there had been some kind of divine rule in the universe because no natural selection process was up to the task of creating something like him. This was some god’s, somewhere’s, handiwork.
Nicole Williams
Anyone who knew the word slattern was worth cultivating as a friend.
Alan Bradley
One day you fall for this boy. And he touches you with his fingers. And he burns holes in your skin with his mouth. And it hurts when you look at him. And it hurts when you don’t. And it feels like someone’s cut you open with a jagged piece of glass.
Maureen Medved
EH.MA.GAWD.
Lisi Harrison
The goal of argumentation is to make a case so forceful (note the metaphor) that skeptics are coerced into believing it—they are powerless to deny it while still claiming to be rational. In principle, it is the ideas themselves that are, as we say, compelling, but their champions are not always averse to helping the ideas along with tactics of verbal dominance, among them intimidation (“Clearly . . .”), threat (“It would be unscientific to . . .”), authority (“As Popper showed . . .”), insult (“This work lacks the necessary rigor for . . .”), and belittling (“Few people today seriously believe that . . .”). Perhaps this is why H. L. Mencken wrote that “college football would be more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students.
Steven Pinker
One possibility is: God is nothing but the power of the universe to organize itself.
Lee Smolin
But it is only people who have plenty of money who can despise it. To the rest of us it is important. It can at least put food in our stomachs clothes on our backs, and it can at least feed our dreams.
Mary Balogh
When you're a kid all you know is that your dad puts on his suit or overalls and vanishes from your life until nightfall. Sometimes my pops came back exhausted and scarlet-eyed, as if he'd been engaged in a low wattage war someplace.
Craig Davidson
He is talking to people in Toronto, trying to find out if I am guilty; but he won't find it out that way. He doesn't understand yet that guilt comes to you not from the things you've done, but from the things that other have done for you.
Margaret Atwood
Fundamentally all writing is about the same thing: it's about dying about the brief flicker of time we have here and the frustrations that it creates.
Mordecai Richler
As a rule I am very careful to be shallow and conventional where depth and originality are wasted.
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Counseling is ultimately not about the counselee or the counselor, but about the Divine Counselor.
James MacDonald
Above all things, dragons are loyal. Perhaps that is what makes us to amenable to life with sticks. Our characters are larger than their shortfalls.
H. Leighton Dickson
...I recall that day on the beach - the sand so brilliant, the clouds so massive, and the wind punishing your hair...
John Geddes
The soul knows no greater anguish than to take a breath that begins with love and ends with grief.
Steven Erikson
It is either coincidence piled on top of coincidence," said Hollus, "or it is deliberate design.
Robert J. Sawyer
...a woman not yet seen, but whose perfume accumulates on the horizon like a storm cloud.
Fernand Dumont
What good is faith if it causes pain for another? What good is religion if it does no good? What good is any belief that leads to hate?
Jared Brock
She's going to keep up her public facade of stoicism and generosity and getting on with thungs. She knows she can do it, she can do the stiff upper lip thing. I will survive. But behind closed doors the going is rough. It's when she is alone that it hits her. And she is often alone, too often, she things no one should have to be alone as much as she is. It should have been me: her mind is a morass of old songs now, Errol Brown started it. It should have been me.
Kate Pullinger
To love is to recognize yourself in another.
Eckhart Tolle
I have to.I've been fighting it all night. I'm going to lose. My battle is as futile as a woman feeling the first pangs of labor and deciding it's an inconvenient time to give birth. Nature wins out. It always does.
Kelley Armstrong
I’m jealous – not of their money to spend, but jealous that, for them, going home is a simple matter of turning down the correct lane.
Amber Dawn
The universe is a gathering of nows that I spread before my feet like a landscape.
Janet Turpin Myers
I was tired of her getting away with being so young.
Margaret Atwood
Money can buy the necessary police order. Justice is sold to the highest bidder
Rohinton Mistry
No man of honor avoided what needed to be done, simply because it might not proceed in his favor.
Claire Delacroix
the fragrance of pine resin is frankincense poured out—a balm of stars and snow and moonlit nights
John Geddes
Love is more abundant than we could possibly imagine. Just like there is more air than we could possibly breathe in, there is more love than we could possibly perceive.
Vironika Tugaleva
Son, let me tell you a little something about the environment… you can try to fix it up all you want, but it’s a waste of time. Sooner or later we’ll all be doomed… slaughtered by terrorists, baked in the heat of the sun, nuked until our shadows glow… greed is good. We don’t exist to help other people, we exist to grow the hell up, have kids, get old and die, while consuming all we can. Nothing comes after. There’s no wrath, no day of reckoning… we just go. POOF! We have no reason to aspire to change the world, son. We’ll thrive by feeding off of whatever’s available. How else do you think we ended up rich? You don’t get ahead by being nice, Thomas.
Rebecca McNutt
We are called at certain moments to comfort people who are enduring some trauma. Many of us don't know how to react in such situations, but others do. In the first place, they just show up. They provide a ministry of presence. Next, they don't compare. The sensitive person understands that each person's ordeal is unique and should not be compared to anyone else's. Next, they do the practical things--making lunch, dusting the room, washing the towels. Finally, they don't try to minimize what is going on. They don't attempt to reassure with false, saccharine sentiments. They don't say that the pain is all for the best. They don't search for silver linings. They do what wise souls do in the presence of tragedy and trauma. They practice a passive activism. They don't bustle about trying to solve something that cannot be solved. The sensitive person grants the sufferer the dignity of her own process. She lets the sufferer define the meaning of what is going on. She just sits simply through the nights of pain and darkness, being practical, human, simple, and direct.
David Brooks
The greater a child’s terror, and the earlier it is experienced, the harder it becomes to develop a strong and healthy sense of self.
Nathaniel Branden
A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.
Robertson Davies
A sob caught in my chest. I didn't even know what a gray was, other than a drab color. All I knew was that I was hungry all the time. And I knew, deep down, that it wasn't just for food.
Michelle Rowen
Let's just say that drama became something very real to me that day, she said. It ceased to be theoretical, was no longer an internal structure in which she could hide and look out on the wold. In a sense, her work had jumped out of a bush and attacked her.I said it seemed to me that at a certain point a lot of people felt that, not about work but about life itself.
Rachel Cusk
It is easy to display a wound, the proud scars of combat. It is hard to show a pimple
Leonard Cohen
Her genius derives from the fact that she was capable of the deepest feeling but also of the most discerning and disciplined thought.
David Brooks
Yeah... everything is images for me. Bits and pieces coming together in pictures.” He grinned. “I see good fortune as dragons, and...” he turned the cup, pointing at a rippling shape along the edge, “and that thing there is definitely a dragon. Whoever this person is – this tall guy you talk to – it’s a good thing for you. Some kind of resolution, and a change for the future...
Danika Stone
There is Ontario patriotism Quebec patriotism or Western patriotism each based on the hope that it may swallow up the others but there is no Canadian patriotism and we can have no Canadian nation when we have no Canadian patriotism.
Henri Bourassa
I think we ought to find something else to do,” said Mandy. “But Alecto my love, you’re the first person to notice my retro diner kitchen. When my parents saw it, they thought I was creating a weird art project.”“I like it. It's got that let’s-drown-ourselves-in-better-days type ambiance,” Alecto declared, his gray eyes narrowed.
Rebecca McNutt
If the loving ones look on magic as evil then the evil doers shall win. For you are turning your back on the life forces themselves, and you shall be weakened by your fear, thirsting for the elixir. Those who would do evil do not fear the forces, they consume the elixir unabated. They are not living in fear of themselves.
Tamara Rendell
Whenever and wherever men have engaged in the mindless slaughter of animals (including other men), they have often attempted to justify their acts by attributing the most vicious or revolting qualities to those they would destory; and the less reason there is for the slaughter, the greater the campaign for vilification.
Farley Mowat
To hold the Gift is to protect the balance in all things and to restore harmony. To hold the Gift is to comfort the mind and spirit, and to heal both heart and body. To hold the Gift is to be a bridge between worlds and to be a bearer of light.
Dani Harper