Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.
Robertson DaviesRead
It is those pent-up, craving children who make all the wars and all the horrors and all the art and all the beauty and discovery in life, because they are trying to achieve what lay beyond their grasp before they were five years old.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that our childhood desires drive both the chaos and creativity in our lives.
Robertson Davies reflects on how the unfulfilled desires and ambitions from our childhood can shape our entire existence. He argues that the intense craving for what we perceive as unattainable drives humanity to create, to fight, and to explore, illustrating the dual nature of these desires as both a source of conflict and profound beauty in art and discovery.
Themes
ChildhoodDesireCreativityConflictBeauty
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about the impact of childhood experiences on adult behavior, this quote can highlight the importance of nurturing creativity and addressing conflicts.
More from Robertson Davies
All quotes →Pessimism is a very easy way out because it is a short view of life. If you look at what is happening around us today, you can't help but feel that life is a terrible complexity of problems. But if you look back a few thousand years, you realize that we have advanced fantastically. If you take a long view, I do not see how you can be pessimistic about the future of mankind.
Robertson DaviesRead
This is one of the cruelties of the theatre of life; we all think of ourselves as stars and rarely recognize it when we are indeed mere supporting characters or even supernumeraries.
Robertson DaviesRead
Everything matters. The Universe is approximately fifteen billion years old, and I swear that in all that time, nothing has ever happened that has not mattered, has not contributed in some way to the totality.
Robertson DaviesRead
The egotist is all surface; underneath is a pulpy mess and a lot of self-doubt. But the egoist may be yielding and even deferential in things he doesn't consider important; in anything that touches his core he is remorseless.
Robertson DaviesRead
The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past.
Robertson DaviesRead
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