Canadian Quotations

Canada Day comes and goes modestly every year. Sure, there are retail sales promotions and a long weekend. But there isn't bluster or commodity in Canadian celebration. Canada isn't big on bunting. Or jet flyovers, fireworks, marching bands or military pomp.

Burton Cummings joining the Guess Who in January 1966 changed my life forever. It's been a rocky affiliation, no doubt. One journalist once described our relationship as the longest running soap opera in Canadian history. That may be a bit oversimplified.

The roots of true achievement lie in the will to become the best that you can become.

Poets are accepted in Canada as practically nowhere else in the West because of their place in an officially supported and popularly endorsed Canadian culture. Yet, they are still bitter and argumentative, as poets elsewhere are, because they have no audience as such, only a sanctioned role in the cultural scheme of things.

Solitude sharpens awareness of small pleasures otherwise lost.

When I was a child I liked watching shows about bounty hunters and Canadian Mounties. I liked the 'Lone Ranger,' I liked shows where the guy saved the girl from the villain. I just liked those kinds of things and I wanted to be a guy like that, you know, that would save the damsel in distress.

Family traditions counter alienation and confusion. They help us define who we are; they provide something steady, reliable and safe in a confusing world.

Never attribute to malice, that which can be reasonably explained by stupidity.

Now I am a writer who can command fairly good payments from magazines with large circulations, I very often refuse to write for them and still write sometimes for small magazines for nothing.

I really enjoyed the sort of real crazy, eclectic layering stuff and how it all worked together. I could tell it was some of it was derivative of something. I could tell that certain things were being looped around and I just really enjoyed the way that it all came together.

Turning back the pages of my sweet shattered dream, I wonder if she'll ever do the same; And the thing that I call living is just being satisfied With knowing I've got no one left to blame.

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?

In many ways, I think that, while we've been remarkably violent in our media, there's been a real schizophrenia. In private, on the Internet, and on public-affairs shows or talk radio, we're way more explicit than we've ever been.

The song came out to be a gem, just came out to be a really, really interesting rendition of it.

Never apologize. Never explain. Just get the thing done, and let them howl.

We want to take care of our employees, because they take care of our family.

No matter what other plans are out there, this is the best plan.

The director is a Canadian, Jeff Stephenson, and any time I get a script that has any Canadian component, I'm always immediately much more interested.

The whole world loves a maverick and the whole world wants the maverick to achieve something nobler than simple rebellion.

Make sure you love what you do or it will eat you alive.

I hope and trust the infinite, the eternal, and merciful and loving God. I worship Him and feel no guilt in my heart before him for what I am going to do.

No, Arrested Development was such an amazing experience in every way, and you know it was very unique in that it was a show that received a lot of critical acclaim, and yet we didn't ever achieve the ratings that we wanted.

By building relations we create a source of love and personal pride and belonging that makes living in a chaotic world easier.

I like to move among painters, mathematicians, psychologists, people who can tell me something.

I've always been interesting in the lighting aspect and always listened to what they were saying.

Nothing to do with anything, something to do with everything.

As the winter set in with its customary Canadian severity the real trouble of the French began. They did not suffer from the cold, but they were dying of scurvy.

The accumulation of personal wealth and the extension of commercial transactions have developed a great and lamentable increase in certain classes of crimes, while the improvements in transport have largely facilitated the escape of fugitive criminals.

You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That's jazz.

The reason they call it 'golf' is that all the other 4 letter words were used up.

I prefer Princess. I would love to be known as a diva later on in life when I've had far more experiences.

Our first scene is sort of a reunion between the X-Men characters, which establishes everyone's relationship to one another, sort of like a recap for all those who have forgotten since the last movie.

What we see is what they're trying to sell us. It's not true nostalgic as much as it is repeating old material because it's less expensive than new material.

Sometimes his methods are questionable, and even his morals are questionable, but his intention is always to protect Sydney. So in that way I think he's a good parent.

I love music so much I love what I do. I work very hard at being the best musician I can be because I love it.

I'm a Canadian. Outside Canada I carry the flag. Canadian nationalism isn't as insidious as American nationalism, though. It's good natured. It's all about maple syrup, not war.

Nothing beats having this beautiful child look at me and say mum. I get soppy all the time.

It doesn't really mean a great deal of difference to a life. You live as you wish to do and if a job is oppressing, you leave it. I've done it on several occasions.

When I started, there weren't that many kids doing it in the city, but the in the wave after me there were a lot of them and they actually never spoke to each other.

You know, grieve your wife, this is an impulsive thing and you have no idea the kind of trouble you're getting yourself into it. And of course he doesn't listen to me and he adopts this child.

I never did smoke that much pot; never was a big pothead.

I try to keep it light and positive most of the time, whereas earlier on I didn't always do that.

Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you.

Yes, I see the Mobile Base System really is the shoulder of the arm. The arm is right there, like a human arm. It's really funny to look at the similarities between a human arm and the Canadian robotics arm.

I wanted to do Dreamgirls. If they're doing a stage production of Sparkle, I think that would be hot.

We are a people who can bring about miracles if united.

I'm just gonna be doing stuff that I really enjoy doing. I'm not gonna attempt to be current in any way other than the fact that people will like what I'm doing currently.

Even the draft dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, most of them... unless they are breaking Canadian laws .. are getting American dollars from Ma and Pa at home to spend here.

It makes you realise that people are the same wherever you go.

Well, you know, it's been interesting because an album is just a snapshot of where you are at that time. Not all pictures of everybody are just in jeans and a 'T' shirt, or a ball gown. You have many different sides and this is a snapshot of where you are at that time.

And we... right from moment one, we were always kinda up against the wall a little bit when it came to the future of the show. There were always rumors.

I was allowed to wander where I could. Here is a case in which you search for your independence and allow something creative to come out of that.

If you're expecting an intellectual film, then you will be disappointed.

It's funny how making odd noises can get you into strange situations sometimes.

I want to work with my friends because Canadian genre publishing is a really small pool.

I feel like Canadian movies should be as good or better than the competition because of the talent we have here. Someone like Ryan Gosling shouldn't have to come back here because it's a Canadian movie. He should want to come back because some of the best movies are being made here.

I'm Canadian - I came from a small island off Vancouver. I moved to Vancouver and a couple months later moved to Los Angeles for work. It was very adventurous. It was kind of scary - I didn't know anybody.

What I'm going to be given I gather is not the key to the city, which in many cities is the case. It's the freedom medal, and for me freedom has always been associated traditionally within the city.

If you can understand the humor in the drawing part you'll probably get the humor in the audio part.

However, while the Nazi barbarians and their collaborators threatened the entire world, I could not accept his philosophy and, after several earlier attempts, was finally accepted into the Canadian Infantry Corps during the last year of World War II.

I know that we're being inexorably taken over by the Americans. Without a doubt. I don't mean invaded or anything like that, just taken over. By degrees.

I was thinking about doing another film at the same time, which was the sequel to Basic Instinct and I just had a feeling that wasn't going to happen. You know, I just kind of read the writing on the wall.

I've always been switching around the show to accommodate the audience, and you know it really makes it a lot more fun for me and keeps it fresh so that I'm not complacent with the same show every night and with every audience.

I owed it to my father that I was elected to Parliament in the first place, but I owed it to my mother that I stuck it out once I got there.

Even if we encounter some shameful events in the past, we shouldn't avoid or hide them.

There will always be another group of kids going to college, drinking beer, and discovering that movie. Many of them have never even heard of SCTV.

Along the beach I never collected shells from my father's shore.

The part of Mike Wallace drew me to the movie because I thought, what an outrageous part to play.

I don't believe in kicking away ladders. By that, I mean the ladders by which I ascended as a young writer, small magazines that didn't pay anything, and that sort of thing.

The book, you understand, was not written for publication. It was the portrayal of my emotions, the analysis of my own soul life during three months of my nineteenth year. I wrote then all the time, just as I do now, but, though the book is in diary form, it is not a diary.

My scratching I don't really think communicates to intelligent life forms. Anyone with more than one brain cell would think Kid Koala music is completely retarded.

It basically comes down to that word: Love. I guess that's what it's all about.

I don't think they should regulate the music field. I don't see how they can regulate the arts.

I was born and raised in Vancouver. I moved to Beijing in 2010 just before the Olympics. Being an Asian Canadian actor, the amount of opportunity at the time was slim to none. I made the decision to go to China, and it was one of the best decisions of my life.

Around 2005, the Canadian army tapped me to do a dramatization for a series of foresight workshops they'd done. They had stacks of papers and needed it boiled down to something simple enough for a 4-star general to understand. We decided to do it as a story. That's how I created 'Crisis in Zefra.'

It's about these people who are inextricably together for whatever reasons, and they happen to be in the spy world. It's about relationships, and the bottom line is, that's why you care.

I think you can learn as much from success as you can from failure.

The first Nintendo game I ever got was 'Clash at Demonhead.' I got into anime and manga thanks to that Canadian classic, 'Sailor Moon.'

Look, I get it; you come home, you work hard, and you turn on your TV... You kind of want to escape a little bit and be taken away by something. Our show required you to pay attention, and if that's not what you wanted to do, then it wasn't going to be for you, and that's OK.

On the way from Chicago, I spent the summer of 1947 in Ottawa, helping to build the first of a series of econometric models for the Canadian government.

I was unpopular at school just because I was an intellectual. I always answered all the questions off the top of my head but they nevertheless resented because of that.

There's individual turntable setups devoted to piano, bass, drums and a set for soloing as well. We like to try and explore the gamut of what a turntable can do.

Australia and Canada were settled by adventurers, they had to break new ground. I think that is indelibly etched on our cultural spirit.

I'm Jamaican, man. I'm Jamaican first. You gotta understand that's where I'm from. That's home. That you can never take away from me. I'm a Jamaican-born Canadian sprinter.

Anything we can do to encourage our young people to celebrate the arts and believe in a career in the arts is wonderful for Canada and for Canadian youth.

If they are willing to give women economic freedom in that home, if they are willing to live by the standard they wish women to live by, then homes will be preserves.

You have a little bit of talent, a certain amount of good fortune and a lot of hard work in pursuit of whatever truth you can find in it, and if you are really lucky, a terrific partner and I have that and those four things worked out for me.

You know, I've sung a lot of emotional songs in my life, but when you're writing it yourself, it's very difficult to decide what to reveal.

I believe in that connection between freedom and the city.

Eventually it just got really crazy. Less and less oxygen in the apartment.

And on top of that, when we work together we have a wonderful working relationship we push each other we challenge each other we laugh 80% of the time that we are together we're very fortunate.

Even at Westchester High in West LA, I was class clown.

I just couldn't get anyone to sing my songs, so I had to sing my own tunes.

My early wounds were the English school system among other things. It wasn't merely the discipline, it was the ways in which boys got what was called the school spirit.

Compared to the United States and certainly a lot of other countries around the world... per year, Australians do see more films.

It was sort of his 'Brando' moment - his very 'method' moment. He just absorbed it and continued on.

Eventually we want to do a puppet musical with turntables in the orchestra pit.

We never reflect how pleasant it is to ask for nothing.

I think we're quite unique in that we do have our own sound and approach and we don't really care what's going on elsewhere... we've never wanted to be part of another trend or movement.

When an actor has money, he doesn't send letters, but telegrams.