Quotes by Canadian Authors - Page 143

Why did he kill his own mother?’ Ruth asked.‘The oldest story in the book,’ said Gamache.‘Ben was a male prostitute?’ Gabri exclaimed.‘That’s the oldest profession. Where do you keep your head?’ asked Ruth. ‘Never mind, don’t answer that.
Louise Penny
Nice hair.’ Olivier turned to Clara, hoping to break the tension.‘Thank you.’ Clara ran her hands through it, making it stand on end as though she’d just had a scare.‘You’re right.’ Olivier turned to Myrna. ‘She looks like a frightened doughboy from the trenches of Vimy. Not many people could carry off that look. Very bold, very new millennium. I salute you.’Clara narrowed her eyes and glared at Myrna whose smile went from ear to ear.
Louise Penny
She strong-armed the swinging door and walked through. Straight into an acid flashback.Clara’s first reaction was to laugh. She stood stunned for a moment then started to laugh. And laugh. And laugh until she thought she’d piddle. Peter was soon infected and began laughing. And Gamache, who up until this moment had only seen a travesty, smiled, then chuckled, then laughed and within moments was laughing so hard he had to wipe away tears.‘Holy horrible taste, Batman,’ said Clara to Peter who doubled over, laughing some more.‘Solid, man, solid,’ he gasped and managed to raise a peace sign before having to put both hands on his knees to support his heaving body.
Louise Penny
You talk like we're in open warfare." "Aren't we?" The man blew on his tea. "You're pointing a gun at something." "I'm annoyed.
Emma Jane Holloway
I truly believed that a man should not be seen to be out front on feminism. That would be just like a man to try to take over the women's movement. We'd taken over everything else in history, in society, in the world, why not feminism, too? No, I don't think so.
Terry Fallis
Back when I was a devout Pharisee, I scowled at those who talked about grace, assuming they wanted both salvation and permission to do whatever they pleased. And when I came to discover grace as a biblical concept, it frightened me at first. The old idea of being saved by works has its benefits. It's a system where God owes you. You've been helping him out with all your good deeds. He can't very well put you through difficulty, since you're a taxpayer. You've paid your dues, you have your rights. But the beyond-belief teaching of grace is that we get what we can never pay for and more, including joy and hope and the desire to please him. I like living by God's grace a lot better than relying on my own efforts.
Phil Callaway
Scott, if your life had a face, I would punch it. I would punch your life in the face.
Brian Lee O'Malley
What does she even eat, do you think?""Tea fungus,"Ruth says. "Unsweetened. From an eye dropper. Is what I picture. either that or some sort of sea vegetable.""Sad," I say."It is," Ruth muses.We decide to order two skim milk cappuccinos and split a gluten-free carrot cake cupcake.
Mona Awad
Our family car was the antithesis of designs and desirability. It was like driving Hitler's moustache.
Samantha Bee
I do not encourage early morning chirpiness, even in those whom I know and love. It is generally a sign of a sloppy mind, and is not to be encouraged.
Alan Bradley
I am strangely excited to see how snarky and sarcastic all us bookworms are going to become when we’re old. We’ll all be Mother Ogma’s with tattoos and piercings and purple WoW leggings carrying wands and staffs, and best of all everyone’s hair will finally be able to hold colour because we’ll all have white hair! We’ll all be blogging on WordPress and still waiting for Sherlock and still celebrating Christmas with Doctor Who specials while our grandchildren play quidditch…
Katelynn Hillier
Yes, Doc, I'm not feeling too well.'Which was true enough, Kwang Meng considered.He had honestly not been feeling too well since he contracted poverty, loneliness, boredom, sexual frustration and periodic coughs and colds. Not to speak of his dreary job.
Goh Poh Seng
This bullet can go straight through the couch."He was right. Fuck Ikea for making such flimsy furniture.
Karina Halle
I fall off horses," he explained to Loghain with a sickly grin. "It's this thing I do.
David Gaider
Your ancient enemy is basically just a really, really big squirrel
Sebastien de Castell
How do I look?" he asked.Barret grinned. "Old."Moog glanced over appraisingly. "Tired."Gabriel snorted a laugh. "Fuck you guys.
Nicholas Eames
You honkies want women to be like cookies, all sweet and dainty and easy to eat. But I'm fry bread, you bitch, and I'm proud of it.
Eden Robinson
Here's a health to our Captain, so gallant and freeWhether stuck on a rock or asleep 'neath a treeOr rolled in the arms of some nymph of the seaWhich is where we would all like to be, man!
Margaret Atwood
I'm so lucky to have a family, adopted or not! I'm so lucky to be alive!" Judy Ellis Taylor tells her three school-age girls.... They roll their eyes.
Shireen Jeejeebhoy
In the yard of the inn, Daffy Cadwaladyr introduced himself. "Short for Davyd," he said pleasantly.The Londoner looked as if she'd never heard a sillier name in her life.
Emma Donoghue
On the drive up here, I saw a goose," he says. "A Canada goose. Fred told me they shit something horrible. They migrate between the north and the south, don't they? Like seniors.
Brian Francis
Well, some men learn by listening, some read, some observe and analyze — and some of us just have to pee on the electric fence.
Spider Robinson
I have been seeing dragons again.Last night, hunched on a beaver dam,one held a body like a badly held cocktail;his tail, keeping the beat of a waltz,sent a morse of ripples to my canoe.They are not richly brightbut muted like dawnsor the vague sheen on a fly's wing.Their old flesh drags in foldsas they drop into grey pools,strain behind a tree.Finally the others saw one today, trapped,tangled in our badminton net.The minute eyes shuddered deep in the creased facewhile his throat, strangely fierce, stretchedto release an extinct burning inside:pathetic loud whispers as four of usand the excited spaniel surrounded him.
Michael Ondaatje
You ever want to negotiate a hostage situation in Quebec, I'm your man. Send me in for a little parley and the francophone miscreants will flee, hands over bleeding ears.
Will Ferguson
Her metaphors for her children included barnacles encrusting a ship and limpets clinging to a rock.
Margaret Atwood
Mother Goose!I have never much cared for flippant remarks, especially when others make them, and in particular, I don't give a frog's fundament for them when they come from an adult.
Alan Bradley
But what he said was true enough: I had recently destroyed a perfectly good set of wire braces by straightening them to pick a lock. Father had grumbled, of course, but had made another appointment to have me netted and dragged back up to London, to that third-floor ironmonger's shop in Farringdon Street, where I would be strapped to a board like Boris Karloff as various bits of ironmongery were shoved into my mouth, screwed in, and bolted to my gums.
Alan Bradley
Don't mind Russ," he says. "He's a good kid underneath all those holes, although it's a wonder he doesn't spring a leak when he drinks
Sara Gruen
Pumpkins are the only living organisms with triangle eyes.
Harland Williams
You know what the best thing is about the end of the day? Tomorrow, it starts all over again.
Douglas Coupland
I remembered that Beethoven's symphonies had sometimes been given names... they should have call [the Fifth] the Vampire, because it simply refused to lie down and die.
Alan Bradley
I can't believe she's lived this long. God must be avoiding her.
Brian Francis
Oh, measure it all out! Acceptable levels of misery and suffering!' The cane swung down, thumped hard on the ground. 'Acceptable? Who the fuck says any level is acceptable? What sort of mind thinks that?'Karsa grinned, 'Why, a civilized one.''Indeed!' Shadowthrone turned to Cotillion. 'And you doubted this one!
Steven Erikson
Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
John Kenneth Galbraith
He had them as spellbound as a room full of Ewoks listening to C-3PO.
Cory Doctorow
The rottweiler stood his ground and waited for me to take the next step in the dance of ritualized intimidation. Instead, I leaped at him. Screw ritual. Now was not the time to stand on ceremony.
Kelley Armstrong
Cheese!" I exclaimed. It was a secret prayer, whose meaning was known only to God and to me.
Alan Bradley
Individuality: ten. Cautiousness: three. Combativeness: nine." She looked over and gave me a wink. "Well, what did you expect from a pirate's daughter? Hope: eight. Amativeness. What's that?"Kate acutally blushed. "I think it has something to do with your attractiveness to the opposite sex.""Ten," said Nadira, smiling modestly. (Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel)
Kenneth Oppel
I got to eavesdrop at a window. As Clay said, I did have another option. I could wait in the car and let them fill me in later. So, eavesdropping it was.
Kelley Armstrong
The man behind the check-in counter gives the impression that he has just axe-murdered the motel's owner (and family, and family pet) and is going through these procedures of hostelry so as not to arouse suspicion.
Paul Quarrington
I always thought eating was a ridiculous activity anyway. I'd get out of it myself if I could, though you've got to do it to stay alive, they tell me.
Margaret Atwood
Someone once told me that we move when it becomes less painful than staying where we are".
Anne Hines
Advertising - A judicious mixture of flattery and threats.
Stephen Leacock
These things sneak up on him for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency.
Margaret Atwood
Could you please put this--could you all put these--could you get dressed, please?"The woman only bestowed a serene smile on me. "We are as the Goddess requires.""The Goddess requires you to be naked on my lawn?
Kelley Armstrong
If I'm out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog.
Saul Bellow
There was a family joke that Lucy's first words were, "Nicholas is bugging me!
Alyxandra Harvey
After all, what could you expect from a pig but a grunt?
L.M. Montgomery
I will feel no guilt on shutting my door to those who didn't listen.
Stefan Molyneux
Compassion without discipline is egregious self-sabotage.
Stefan Molyneux
Accepting necessary conflicts for the sake of improving the lives of children is the only fundamental moral crusade that matters.
Stefan Molyneux
It’s been easier to convince people to hand over half their income, their children to war, and their freedoms in perpetuity, than to engage them in seriously considering how roads might function in the absence of taxation.
Stefan Molyneux
There is a warin your nameI have martyred yousold you to freedomoh, Freedom
Bänoo Zan
No rules for the rulers is tyranny for the subjects. Freedom for politicians is enslavement for citizens.
Stefan Molyneux
Freedom was a drug, one that grabbed hold of you the second it entered your bloodstream. It made you giddy and reckless if you didn’t know how to channel it.
Elle Kennedy
I know why there is no glass, in front of the watercolor picture of blue irises, and why the window opens only partly and why the glass in it is shatter-proof. It isn't running away they're afraid of. We wouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge.
Margaret Atwood
As the wicked flee when none pursueth, so does the middle-class wrestle when none contendeth. They cried out for freedom, it came down on them in a flood. Nothing remains but a few floating timbers of psychotherapy.
Saul Bellow
The challenge of modern freedom, or the combination of isolation and freedom which confronts you, is to make yourself up. The danger is that you may emerge from the process as a not-entirely-human creature.
Saul Bellow
Freedom - rather more complicated in the concrete than the abstract, yes?
Ian C. Esslemont
For any created being, autonomy is lunacy. Freedom involves trust and obedience inside a relationship of love.
William Paul Young