Mordecai Richler Quotes
For the record, pot, like the Reader's Digest , is not necessarily habit-forming, but both can lead to hard-core addiction : heroin, in one case, abridged bad books, in the other. Either way you look at it, a withdrawal from a meaningful life.
Richler, Mordecai. Shovelling Trouble. McClelland and Stewart, 1972.
Describing his congressional colleagues use of the free mail privilege:
The reason that this is a noteworthy quotation is that it illustrates a problem of alcohol and other drug prevention. Specifically, the “fact” that is the message of the billboard is not correct and exaggerates the danger. The general problem is well-intentioned but inaccurate and misleading information provided to the public. When the public, especially young people, discover that the government or the other organization urging the public to eschew drugs is not telling the truth, they not only tend of disbelieve all anti-drug messages and believe that the warnings given are just part of politics or prudish elements of the society. In this case, many young people and adults have seen or know people who were heroin addicts and are no longer. They are not hooked for life. Worse, a single dosage of heroin does not per se inevitably cause addiction. There have been people who used heroin once, continued to use and became addicts. But there are many more who have tried heroin once or twice who did not become addicted. The real risk is that if someone tries heroin once, he/she may become one of those who goes on and gets hooked. The billboard message is “WILL” and the truth is “MAY”.
Mordecai Richler was a Canadian writer. His best known works are The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959) and Barney's Version (1997). His 1970 novel St. Urbain's Horseman and 1989 novel Solomon Gursky Was Here were shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He is also well known for the Jacob Two-Two children's fantasy series. In addition to his fiction, Richler wrote numerous essays about the Jewish community in Canada, and about Canadian and Quebec nationalism. Richler's Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! (1992), a collection of essays about nationalism and anti-Semitism, generated considerable controversy.
