Quotes by Canadian Authors - Page 30

One thing about which fish know exactly nothing is water, since they have no anti-environment which would enable them to perceive the element they live in.
Marshall McLuhan
Nostalgia for the 20th century brain helps nobody.
Douglas Coupland
The glories of the past compensated for the imperfections of the present.
Margaret MacMillan
Wendy’s house, unlike many in Cape Breton, had three floors, along with a basement and attic. Aside from Wendy’s bedroom, there was a laundry room. The dirty water in the sink would rush from the washer hose, bubbling up, threatening to overflow, but it never did. Next-door was a motel with a neon sign that read in turquoise and pink, “We have the best rates in town!”, but the ‘E’ in ‘rates’ kept flickering on and off day and night so that every few seconds it would switch to, “We have the best rats in town!
Rebecca McNutt
And the further they go, the more they'll remember, they can take it from me.
Rohinton Mistry
The sixties are like a theme park to them. They wear the costume, buy their tickets, and they have the experience.
Douglas Coupland
I felt a pang -- a strange and inexplicable pang that I had never felt before. It was homesickness. Now, even more than I had earlier when I'd first glimpsed it, I longed to be transported into that quiet little landscape, to walk up the path, to take a key from my pocket and open the cottage door, to sit down by the fireplace, to wrap my arms around myself, and to stay there forever and ever.
Alan Bradley
An ideology can provide a satisfying narrative that explains chaotic events and collective misfortunes in a way that flatters the virtue and competence of believers, while being vague or conspiratorial enough to withstand skeptical scrutiny.
Steven Pinker
Milena found Cilia outside, holding her bamboo box. Milena hugged her. ‘I’m sorry about your shins,’ she said. Milena lifted the lid of the box, and saw it, the precious paper, ruled in staves. People were generous. Milena had never believed that.
Geoff Ryman
The capacity for erroneous belief is very great, especially where it coincides with convenience.
John Kenneth Galbraith
All things are within the Circle. That is the very Center of what we believe. If all things are not enclosed, then there is no Circle.
Tanya Huff
The kind of people I absolutely cannot tolerate are those who never let you forget they are religious. It seems to me that a truly religious person would let his life be example enough, would not let his religion interfere with being a human being, and would not be so insecure as to have to fawn publicly before his gods.
W.P. Kinsella
I wish there wasn't such a division between people who believe certain things and people who don't. It seems vastly hypocritical on both ends, these two groups of people both claiming to believe in good things and yet willing to do bad things to each other for disagreeing.
Kevin Breel
The whole crowd interrupted and told him, 'No, we won't let you go. You have worked hard for our rights and you can't quit now.''Then,' said Riel, 'if I must, I will desert.''If you desert, we will desert with you.
Gabriel Dumont
Cousin Jimmy thinks I did perfectly right. Cousin Jimmy would think I had done perfectly right if I had murdered Andrew and buried him in the Land of Uprightness. It's very nice to have one friend like that, though too many wouldn't be good for you.
L.M. Montgomery
I'm going to continue keeping an eye on him, Becca said. If he does anything shady, I'll report back. I swear I won't let anything bad happen to you if I can help it. He nodded as he collected the copper box and began to follow after Barnabas. The feeling is entirely mutual, Becca Hatcher.
Morgan Rhodes
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
People do more for their fellows than return favors and punish cheaters. They often perform generous acts without the slightest hope for payback ranging from leaving a tip in a restaurant they will never visit again to throwing themselves on a live grenade to save their brothers in arms. [Robert] Trivers together with the economists Robert Frank and Jack Hirshleifer has pointed out that pure magnanimity can evolve in an environment of people seeking to discriminate fair weather friends from loyal allies. Signs of heartfelt loyalty and generosity serve as guarantors of one s promises reducing a partner s worry that you will default on them. The best way to convince a skeptic that you are trustworthy and generous is to be trustworthy and generous.
Steven Pinker
It don't matter about all that anyway," Armstrong added. "You think it do, but it don't. A man ain't just his one talent. Lil Louis needs you. And Jones look to you like you his brother. You got the talent of making others your kin, your blood. Music, well that's different. I reckon it got its own worth, but it ain't a man's whole life.""Aww hell, Louis," I thought. "Ain't nothing else I want.
Esi Edugyan
Pat wanted to comfort him for something she did not understand. She slipped her little hand into his...he had a warm pleasant hand. They walked home together so.
L.M. Montgomery
She was dry. She was lying on something soft. She was wrapped in quilts. There was a star of light drifting above her, and a smell like a herb garden. Taggle was a long warmth stretched out at one side, his chin in her hand, his tail curled over her neck. She thought they might be in heaven.Taggle farted.Plain Kate coughed and sneezed. And then she really was awake.
Erin Bow
I like to hear a storm at night. It is so cosy to snuggle down among the blankets and feel that it can't get at you.
L.M. Montgomery
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 richness of the rain made me feel safe and protected; I have always considered the rain to be healing—a blanket—the comfort of a friend. Without at least some rain in any given day, or at least a cloud or two on the horizon, I feel overwhelmed by the information of sunlight and yearn for the vital, muffling gift of falling water.
Douglas Coupland
They'll want to kill the crazies first. Big fish eat little fish -- always have, always will.
Allan Dare Pearce
The word, 'issues,' is perhaps a misnomer, a gross understatement, or a pale and withered description for very real psychological illnesses and emotional losses. Nevertheless, "post-adoption issues" is a catch-all phrase, and at least it avoid pathologizing adoptees.
Laura Dennis
DSM-5 is not 'the bible of psychiatry' but a practical manual for everyday work. Psychiatric diagnosis is primarily a way of communicating. That function is essential but pragmatic—categories of illness can be useful without necessarily being 'true.' The DSM system is a rough-and-ready classification that brings some degree of order to chaos. It describes categories of disorder that are poorly understood and that will be replaced with time. Moreover, current diagnoses are syndromes that mask the presence of true diseases. They are symptomatic variants of broader processes or arbitrary cut-off points on a continuum.
Joel Paris
The categories used in psychiatric diagnosis are based on observation of signs and symptoms, rather than on pathological processes. One can make use of a few signs, such as facial expressions associated with depression or the flight of ideas associated with mania. But what clinicians mainly use for diagnosis are symptoms, the subject experiences reported by patients. Psychiatrists have little knowledge of the processes that lie behind these phenomena. Thus psychiatric diagnoses, with very few exceptions, are syndromes, not diseases.
Joel Paris
You will do great and terrible things, Bethany Rudan. Just make sure you know the difference before you choose to act. And look to the boy, the tracker. He anchors you.
Meghan Ciana Doidge
There was a time when I could have slept with his friend Briffa, for instance. Around him the air was always fraught with possibilities.
Michael Ondaatje
Life’s best coaches are those who believe in you and your potential, sometimes even before you do.
Lorii Myers
Can you remember how you felt when you were communicating through your artwork? Not just the sense of completion, but the sense of rightness- the sense that you had brought to life something that could live beyond your sphere of being, that held in it far more potential than you ever realized you were imbuing in the work?
Charles de Lint
A leader's job is not to put greatness into people, but rather to recognize that it already exists, and to create an environment where that greatness can emerge and grow.
Brad Smith
See things in terms of Potential. Recognize:Your Amazing Potential.
Akiroq Brost
You are not who you say you are but rather what you do. Look at what it is that you do. If you don't like what you see: decide what you would like to see instead. Make those changes. Realize your potential. Harness your power. Seize every opportunity and do what it is that allows you to be true to yourself. Don't deny yourself your path. Only YOU can decide! Only YOU have that power! Only YOU are living your life!
Akiroq Brost
Most of us are capable of more than we believe.
Nathaniel Branden
Your life is important. Honor it. Fight for your highest possibilities.
Nathaniel Branden
Every moment has infinite potential. Every new moment contains for you possibilities that you can't possibly imagine. Every day is a blank page that you could fill with the most beautiful drawings.
John C. Parkin
Sir James waved a gnarled hand. "They're nothing but feral file clerks, dragons. They used to alphabetize the coins in their hoards.
Rachel Hartman
Orma moved a pile of books off a stool for me but seated himself directly on another stack. This habit of his never ceased to amuse me. Dragons no longer hoarded gold; Comonot's reforms had outlawed it. For Orma and his generation, knowledge was treasure. As dragons through the ages had done, he gathered it and then he sat on it.
Rachel Hartman
She slept a dreamless sleep free of dragons for she had slain them once again. The Children of Ankh
Kim Cormack
Fantasy elevates ordinary and eternal problems of young people into stories via the language of myth. It turns “No one really knows me” into “I’ve got a secret identity.” It turns “I don’t understand why other people act the way they do” into “I’m trapped in a faerie realm.” It turns “my high school must have been built over the mouth of hell” into “my high school must have been built over the mouth of hell.” There are certain things in life that are glorious, and they are glorious for everyone. There are more that are hard, and they are hard for everyone. We like to see these things retold, but with dragons.
Erin Bow
Someone should love you. I will bite him if he will not.
Rachel Hartman
How much did a Dragon hide, when he walked the streets of the city?
Michelle Sagara
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
I don't know. I was just calling it that in my head all along, and so I programmed that name into the processor. What do you think?""It's stupid," Lourdvang rumbled.
Wesley King
You can't replace one dog with another any more than you can replace one person with another, but that's not to say you shouldn't get more dogs and people in your life.
Polly Horvath
In dog culture, when someone calls you, you should absolutely not come if that results in the ending of something you like or initiation of something you don’t like.
Jean Donaldson
The dominance panacea is so out of proportion that entire schools of training are based on the premise that if you can just exert adequate dominance over the dog, everything else will fall into place. Not only does it mean that incredible amounts of abuse are going to be perpetrated against any given dog, probably exacerbating problems like unreliable recalls and biting, but the real issues, like well-executed conditioning and the provision of an adequate environment, are going to go unaddressed, resulting in a still-untrained dog, perpetuating the pointless dominance program. None of this is to say that dogs aren’t one of those species whose social life appears to lend itself to beloved hierarchy constructs. But, they also see well at night, and no one is proposing retinal surgery to address their non-compliance or biting behavior. Pack theory is simply not the most elegant model for explaining or, especially, for treating problems like disobedience, misbehavior or aggression. People who use aversives to train with a dominance model in mind would get a better result with less wear and tear on the dog by using aversives with a more thorough understanding of learning theory, or, better yet, forgoing aversives altogether and going with the other tools in the learning theory tool box. The dominance concept is simply unnecessary.
Jean Donaldson
So what is the fallout for dogs of the Lassie myth? As soon as you bestow intelligence and morality, you bestow the responsibility that goes along with them. In other words, if the dog knows it’s wrong to destroy furniture yet deliberately and maliciously does it, remembers the wrong he did and feels guilt, it feels like he merits a punishment2, doesn’t it? That’s just what dogs have been getting - a lot of punishment. We set them up for all kinds of punishment by overestimating their ability to think. Interestingly, it’s the “cold” behaviorist model that ends up giving dogs a much better crack at meeting the demands we make of them. The myth gives problems to dogs they cannot solve and then punishes them for failing. And the saddest thing is that the main association most dogs have with that punishment is the presence of their owner. This puts a pretty twisted spin on loooving dogs ‘cause they’re so smart, doesn’t it?
Jean Donaldson
Dogs (like rats) are multitalented but they are also not very smart the way humans are. A recent book, devoted to the intelligence of dogs, is 250+ pages long (Stanley Coren, The Intelligence of Dogs: A Guide to the Thoughts, Emotions, and Inner Lives of Our Canine Companions, 1994). Interestingly, despite careful qualifications by Coren regarding definitions, the ranking of breeds by intelligence literally made newspaper headlines. We are obviously fascinated by the notion that dogs - or at least certain breeds of dog - might, just might, be really, really smart. It all makes as much sense as evaluating humans on our ability to sniff for bombs or echo-locate.
Jean Donaldson
That family of Elliotts has always been more stubborn than natteral. Marshall's brother Alexander had a dog he set great store by, and when it died the man actilly wanted to have it buried in the graveyard, 'along with the other Christians,' he said. Course, he wasn't allowed to; so he buried it just outside the graveyard fence, and never darkened the church door again. But Sundays he'd drive his family to church and sit by that dog's grave and read his Bible all the time service was going on. They say when he was dying he asked his wife to bury him beside the dog; she was a meek little soul but she fired up at THAT. She said SHE wasn't going to be buried beside no dog, and if he'd rather have his last resting place beside the dog than beside her, jest to say so. Alexander Elliott was a stubborn mule, but he was fond of his wife, so he give in and said, 'Well, durn it, bury me where you please. But when Gabriel's trump blows I expect my dog to rise with the rest of us, for he had as much soul as any durned Elliott or Crawford or MacAllister that ever strutted.
L.M. Montgomery
What the fuck does he think he's doing anyway? And when has running around in a figure eight ever helped anyone?
C.K. Kelly Martin
The dog always dies. Go to the library and pick out a book with an award sticker and a dog on the cover. Trust me, that dog is going down.
Gordon Korman
Not Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and Astor together could have raised money enough to buy a quarter share in my little dog.
Ernest Thompson Seton
Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we're still alive. We wish to assert our existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants.
Margaret Atwood
The most dangerous enemy is not the one who lingers behind you in the shadows, but the one who walks beside you as a friend.
Bianca Scardoni
I don’t want any other friends! They’d never be as good a friend as you are.
Rebecca McNutt
I had the feeling deep in my gut that there'd been lines I should have spoken, gestures I should have made, that would have made things better. But looking back, I didn't know what they were. As a friend, I was pretty much useless, apparently.
Megan Crewe
Maybe the best things are those that take the most work, you know? Maybe how you get somewhere can be at least as important as where you're going.
Ryan North