"All education is a struggle," said Marchbanks. "I had to struggle against schools and universities, of course, in order to get time to educate mysel… - Robertson Davies

He liked to make his hearers jump, now and then, and he said that our gravel pit was much the same sort of place as Gehenna. My elders thought this far-fetched, but I saw no reason why hell should not have, so to speak, visible branch establishments throughout the earth, and I have visited quite a few of them since.

It is in this matter that I fall foul of so many American writers on writing; they seem to think that writing is a confidence game by means of which the author cajoles a restless, dull-witted, shallow audience into hearing his point of view. Such an attitude is base, and can only beget base prose.

When John Ryder, for instance, writes "I utter valediction to the author of my being," he means simply that he said goodbye to his mother.