But I wonder if people do not attach too much importance to the first-name habit? Every man and woman is a mystery, built like those Chinese puzzles … - Robertson Davies

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But I wonder if people do not attach too much importance to the first-name habit? Every man and woman is a mystery, built like those Chinese puzzles which consist of one box inside another, so that ten or twelve boxes have to be opened before the final solution is found. Not more than two or three people have ever penetrated beyond my outside box, and there are not many people whom I have explored further; if anyone imagines that being on first-name terms with somebody magically strips away all the boxes and reveals the inner treasure he still has a great deal to learn about human nature. There are people, of course, who consist only of one box, and that a cardboard carton, containing nothing at all.

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About Robertson Davies

Robertson Davies CC (August 28 1913 – December 2 1995) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist and professor.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Alternative Names: William Robertson Davies

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Additional quotes by Robertson Davies

Have you never read the manifesto of the Marchbanks Humanist Party? How does it begin?
The more taboos and prohibitions there are in the world
The poorer the people will be.
The more sharp weapons the people have
The more troubled the state will be.
The more cunning and skill man possesses
The more vicious things will appear.
The more laws and orders are made prominent
The more thieves and robbers there will be.
And who wrote that, do you suppose?" "You, I imagine." "No, you don't imagine. That's what's wrong with you, and your kind; you don't, and can't imagine. Those words were written by the Chinese sage Lao Tzu in the sixth century BC.

The young people, who were all Canadians, immediately formed themselves into a committee of the whole, from which they elected a working committee, which discussed the matter for about an hour, though as it was a committee the time seemed to be a year and a day.

Nobody gets through life without a broken heart. The important thing is to break the heart so that when it mends it will be stronger than before.

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