Robertson Davies Quotes

I cried like a baby. When no one could see me or hear me. Not because I feared what cancer would do, but because I didn't want the disease. I wanted my life to be normal, which it could no longer be.

Disease is a disturbed condition, not a thing or entity.

If sequestered pain made a sound, the atmosphere would be humming all the time.

I have never felt so lonely as on a golf course in the midst of a championship with thousands of people around, especially when things began to go wrong and the crowds started wandering away.

People in distress will sometimes prefer a problem that is familiar to a solution that is not.

There are dull and bright, sacred and profane, coarse and fine egotists. It is a disease that, like influenza, falls on all constitutions. In the distemper known to physicians as chorea, the patient sometimes turns round, and continues to spin slowly in one spot. Is egotism a metaphysical varioloid of this malady?

I really have no interest in delivering the iambic pentameter, I just want to kill myself. I don't mind other people doing it. I say that, but really I don't want to watch other people doing it. I get embarrassed.

Potential unexpressed turns to pain.

He was healthier than the rest of us, but when you listened with the stethoscope you could hear the tears bubbling inside his heart.

There's something people do to you when they bully you that makes you feel like you're on your own. But don't keep things inside, it's really damaging if you do.

I've stabbed two people with a fork today. What's wrong with me?

You ever want to feel powerless? Watch the people you care about being hurt and know there is nothing you can do about it.

I look placid, you see, that's why people think I'm fine. Inside I worry a lot.

It is difficult to feel sympathy for these people. It is difficult to regard some bawdy drunk and see them as sick and powerless. It is difficult to suffer the selfishness of a drug addict who will lie to you and steal from you and forgive them and offer them help. Can there be any other disease that renders its victims so unappealing?

Addiction is not just for bad people or scumbags - it's a universal disease.

I read the most extravagant things about people who suffer and depress because of things written about them.

I am an unfortunate and deserted creature, I look around and I have no relation or friend upon earth. These amiable people to whom I go have never seen me and know little of me. I am full of fears, for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world forever.

I have withdrawal pains about not getting to work the people (on the show).

When the suicide arrived at the sky, the people there asked him: "Why?" He replied: "Because no one admired me.

When someone does not know how to handle his own suffering, one allows it to spill all over the people around him or her. When you suffer, you make people around you suffer. That's very natural. This is why we have to learn how to handle our suffering, so we won't spread it everywhere.

...some people coddle their own afflictions the way others spoil small pedigreed dogs with cans of pate.

I'm always really worried about ruining their lives. Especially with people that aren't famous. It's such a massive change. I'm kind of a paranoid wreck. I've eaten a lot of room service.

There is no such thing as an incurable disease, only incurable people.

I'm especially interested in relationships since that is a part of life that causes enormous pain for many people.

I can't watch the news. It's extremely unsettling. Certain people can be a little desensitized because of movies, and I'm totally a part of that world, so I understand. But when you're actually seeing what's happening, you can't help but be a little affected.