J. B. Priestley Quotes

Canada is the only country in the world that knows how to live without an identity.

Canada is the essence of not being. Not English, not American, it is the mathematic of not being. And a subtle flavour - we're more like celery as a flavour.

I always feel as though I'm not quite Canadian enough for everybody.

Canadians are so different and so lovely.

Canadians still spend so much time discussing what it means to be Canadian.

I don't have a moral plan, I'm a Canadian.

There is a Canadian culture that is in some ways unique to Canada, but I don't think Canadian culture coincides neatly with borders.

The beginning of Canadian cultural nationalism was not 'Am I really that oppressed?' but 'Am I really that boring?'

Canada has, at times, represented itself as a country in a valiant struggle against powerful and menacing agents that are indifferent to its special practices and sensibilities - most especially American culture. It's the old, outdated garrison mentality.

We are not America. We are Afghanistan.

Why would I be embarrassed about being Canadian? I'm very proud. We're just the nicest people. Everyone likes us.

In Canada, for boys, your identity is built on hockey. It's your social position; it's everything. And I was the worst hockey player of Canada.

Each nation grows after its own genius, and has a civilization of its own.

The most American thing in America

At the end of the day, what would be a Canadian sensibility? Is it Michael Ondaatje? Alice Munro? Is Margaret Atwood more Canadian than Neil Bissoondath?

America is unique in the world. If you don't believe that, just ask someone from another country.

As a Canadian, we are sort of inherently built with an unshakable humility that at times can work against you.

It seems to me that Canadian sensibility has been profoundly disturbed, not so much by our famous problem of identity, important as that is, as by a series of paradoxes in what confronts that identity. It is less perplexed by the question "Who am I?" than by some such riddle as "Where is here?

I've lived in America for many years. I mean, I love being a Canadian, but I truly identify with America. I love America so much.

To me it's very obvious there are huge cultural differences between Americans and Canadians. But a lot of what we are is American.

But Americans are different from everyone else in the world - except the Canadians, and Americans are more different from the Canadians than they often think.

In Montreal, where I taught in 1970, I met many people. The only ones who said to me they were Canadians, were Jews. All the rest were Scotts, Irish, English, French, Swedes.

Nationality is not a universal human principle but an historical, local fact...Every nation, even a small one, has its own character, its own particular way of life and manner of speaking, feeling, thinking, and behaving. These distinctive features are the essence of nationality, the product of a nation's entire history and conditions of existence. Every nation, like every individual, is of necessity what it is, and has an unquestionable right to be itself. So-called national rights consist precisely of this.

Canada is a live country - live, but not, like the States, kicking.

You can be a French Canadian or an English Canadian, but not a Canadian. We know how to live without an identity, and this is one of our marvellous resources.