I never heard of anyone who was really literate or who ever really loved books who wanted to suppress any of them. - Robertson Davies

The people who fear humour — and they are many — are suspicious of its power to present things in unexpected lights, to question received opinions and to suggest unforeseen possibilities.

No need to go into details about what I said to Judy? I am no poet, and I suppose what I said was very much what everybody always says, and although I remember her as speaking golden words, I cannot recall precisely anything she said. If love is to be watched and listened to without embarrassment, it must be transmuted into art, and I don't know how to do that, and it is not what I have come to Zürich to learn.

Men of action, I notice, are rarely humble, even in situations where action of any kind is a great mistake, and masterly inaction is called for.