Irving Layton quotes
-
“When you argue with your inferiors, you convince them of only one thing: they are as clever as you.”
-- Irving LaytonSource : Irving Layton (1969). “The whole bloody bird: obs, aphs & pomes”
-
“Since I no longer expect anything from mankind except madness, meanness, and mendacity; egotism, cowardice, and self-delusion, I have stopped being a misanthrope.”
-- Irving LaytonSource : Irving Layton (1969). “The whole bloody bird: obs, aphs & pomes”
-
“A Canadian is someone who keeps asking the question, 'What is a Canadian?”
-- Irving LaytonSource : Irving Layton, Howard Aster (1977). “Taking Sides: The Collected Social and Political Writings of Irving Layton, 1935-1977”, Mosaic Pr
-
“Death is a name for beauty not in use.”
-- Irving LaytonSource : 1953 'Composition in Late Spring', collected in The Collected Poems of Irving Layton (1971).
-
-
“It amazes me that organs that piss Can give human beings such perfect bliss.”
-- Irving LaytonSource : 1969 TheWhole Bloody Bird,'Aphs'.
-
“Only the tiniest fracton of mankind want freedom. All the rest want someone to tell them theyare free.”
-- Irving Layton -
“Conscience: self-esteem with a halo.”
-- Irving LaytonSource : Irving Layton (1969). “The whole bloody bird: obs, aphs & pomes”
-
“Whom the gods do not intend to destroy, they first make mad with poetry.”
-- Irving LaytonSource : Irving Layton (1989). “Selected Poems, 1945-89: A Wild Peculiar Joy”
-
-
“And me happiest when I compose poems: Love, power, the huzza of battle are something, are much: yet a poem includes them like a pool water and reflection.”
-- Irving LaytonSource : Irving Layton (2012). “A Wild Peculiar Joy: The Selected Poems”, p.23, McClelland & Stewart
-
“how seasonably leaf and blossom uncurl and living things arrange their death, while someone from afar off blows birthday candles for the world.”
-- Irving LaytonSource : Irving Layton (1977). “The Selected Poems of Irving Layton”, p.12, New Directions Publishing
-
“We love in another's soul whatever of ourselves we can deposit in it; the greater the deposit, the greater the love”
-- Irving LaytonSource : Irving Layton (1969). “The whole bloody bird: obs, aphs & pomes”
-
“I am a genius who has written poems that will survive with the best of Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Keats”
-- Irving LaytonSource : Irving Layton (1972). “Engagements: the prose of Irving Layton”, McClelland & Stewart
-
-
“Canadians look down on the United States and consider it Hell. They are right to do so. Canada is to the United States what, in Dante's scheme, Limbo is to Hell”
-- Irving LaytonSource : Irving Layton (1969). “The whole bloody bird: obs, aphs & pomes”
-
“God is indeed dead. He died of self-horror when He saw the creature He had made in His own image.”
-- Irving LaytonSource : Irving Layton (1969). “The whole bloody bird: obs, aphs & pomes”
-
“My neighbor doesn't want to be loved as much as he wants to be envied.”
-- Irving LaytonSource : Irving Layton (1969). “The whole bloody bird: obs, aphs & pomes”
-
“By walking, I found out where I was going.”
-- Irving LaytonSource : Irving Layton (2012). “A Wild Peculiar Joy: The Selected Poems”, p.110, McClelland & Stewart
-
-
“Progress of a marriage: There was a time when you couldn't make me happy. Now the time has come when you can make me unhappy.”
-- Irving Layton -
“Time flames like a paraffin stove / and what burns are the minutes I live.”
-- Irving LaytonSource : Irving Layton (2012). “A Wild Peculiar Joy: The Selected Poems”, p.79, McClelland & Stewart
-
“Idealist: a cynic in the making.”
-- Irving LaytonSource : Irving Layton (1969). “The whole bloody bird: obs, aphs & pomes”
-
-
“An aphorism should be like a burr: sting, ... and leave a little soreness....”
-- Irving Layton
You may also like:
-
Adrienne Clarkson
Former Governor General of Canada -
Al Purdy
Poet -
Alden Nowlan
Poet -
Alice Munro
Author -
Earle Birney
Poet -
Gabrielle Roy
Author -
Gwendolyn MacEwen
Poet -
Leonard Cohen
Singer-songwriter -
Louis Dudek
Poet -
Margaret Atwood
Poet -
Margaret Laurence
Novelist -
Michael Ondaatje
Novelist -
Mordecai Richler
Author -
P. K. Page
Poet -
Paul Giamatti
Actor -
Rainer Maria Rilke
Poet -
Robertson Davies
Novelist -
Stephen Leacock
Writer -
Timothy Findley
Novelist