Davies Quotes

I have always worked with energy. Everything is energy. Buddhism. Christ teachings. These are foundation stones for a spiritual life. ~ Dave Davies

Nobody ever reads the same book twice. ~ Robertson Davies

It's not that photography recaptures the world you have been in; more that it creates a new one: photographs are like Post-It Notes reminding us of the deep architectonic forms of space and thought. ~ Luke Davies

I like heroes, and would like to be a hero myself. I suppose we all want that. ~ John Rhys-Davies

I wasn't a very academic kid, and music was the way for all that feeling and angst and sex and love and anger to be channelled. ~ Dave Davies

Everything is reduced to what's physical in the end, because it's the filth inside people's minds that creates all the evil. What is a body, anyway? I suppose you've got to abuse your body to understand it. If you're not prepared to humiliate yourself in order to give somebody else a moment's pleasure, I don't believe that you've actually lived. ~ Ray Davies

What's in a fairytale? Shadows and light, good and true, vile and ugly, frightening and comforting, heroes and heroines who know that belief in their own magic spurs them on. It is their own faith and courage as they reach for an unwritten Destiny that grants their deepest hopes and makes dreams, as if by magic, come true. ~ Suzy Davies

People are not saints just because they haven't got much money or education. ~ Robertson Davies

The drama may be called that part of theatrical art which lends itself most readily to intellectual discussion: what is left is theater. ~ Robertson Davies

I learnt too late that what is most important to us is always most precious at the moment it occurs, and it is precious in its absolute immediacy and not as some vague confirmation of future directions; since the only certain fact, aside from death, is the flimsiness of everything. ~ Luke Davies

Supposing we knew that up there is some alien civilization and it's sending radio signals our way we should not tell the public where that is. We could say that we've picked up a signal, but we should not tell them where for the simple reason that anybody could commandeer a radio telescope, set themselves up as some self appointed spokesperson of mankind and start beaming all sorts of crazy messages back to the aliens. ~ Paul Davies

Only in the theatre was it possible to see the performers and to be warmed by their personal charm, to respond to their efforts and to feel their response to the applause and appreciative laughter of the audience. It had an intimate quality; audience and actors conspired to make a little oasis of happiness and mirth within the walls of the theatre. Try as we will, we cannot be intimate with a shadow on a screen, nor a voice from a box. ~ Robertson Davies

Through conscious beings the universe has generated self-awareness. This can be no trivial detail, no minor byproduct of mindless, purposeless forces. We are truly meant to be here. ~ Paul Davies

At this moment, there are 6,470,818,671 people in the world. Some are running scared. Some are coming home. Some tell lies to make it through the day. Others are just now facing the truth. Some are evil men, that war with good. And some are good, struggling with evil. 6 billion people in the world. 6 billion souls. And sometimes, all you need is one. ~ Brooke Davies

From time to time there is a move to do a little less in the way of period dramas, but people rebel. Audiences say we want them. There is a big hunger for them. I don't think it's sentimentality or nostalgia, it's often that they are simply the best stories. ~ Andrew Davies

In my collection, to me at least, the theatre of the past lives again and those long-dead playwrights and actors have in me an enthralled audience of one, and I applaud them across the centuries. ~ Robertson Davies

They should be working, and there isn't enough work. ~ Siobhan Davies

I'm quite a curious person. I don't mind being the one who doesn't know things, a role I often play in QI. ~ Alan Davies

Blow your brains out and do it right, make sure it's on prime time and on Saturday night. ~ Ray Davies

Conversations and jokes together, mutual rendering of good services, the reading together of sweetly phrased books, the sharing of nonsense and mutual attentions. ~ Robertson Davies

Only a Christian culture could have produced a Voltaire or a Nietzsche. I do not believe that the culture of Europe could survive the complete disappearance of the Christian Faith. ~ Norman Davies

I was a big, big fan of Jimmy Burton. Anything with him on, I used to perk up and listen to it over and over and over again. ~ Dave Davies

NOMISMA, MEANING 'COIN', was used by both Greeks and Romans. Our own word 'money' derives, via the French monnaie, from the Latin moneta, meaning the mint, where coins are struck. (In early Rome the mint was situated on the Capitoline Hill in the temple of Juno Moneta.) ~ Norman Davies

All real fantasy is serious. Only faked fantasy is not serious. That is why it is so wrong to impose faked fantasy on children ... ~ Robertson Davies

... 'But Gold was not all. The other kings bring Frank Innocence and Mirth.' | Darcourt was startled, then delighted. 'That is very fine, Yerko; is it your own?' | 'No, it is in the story. I saw it in New York. The kings say, We bring you Gold, Frank Innocence, and Mirth.' | 'Sancta simplicitas,' said Darcourt, raising his eyes to mine. 'If only there were more Mirth in the message He has left to us. We miss it sadly, in the world we have made. And Frank Innocence. Oh, Yerko, you dear man.' ... ~ Robertson Davies

It is possible that a scientific discovery will be made that humans will later regret because it has awful consequences. The problem is, we probably would not know in advance and, once the discovery is made, it cannot be undiscovered. ~ Paul Davies

Donna: You're not saying much.
The Doctor: No, it's just - It's a funny old life. In the TARDIS.
Donna: You don't want me.
The Doctor: I'm not saying that.
Donna: But you asked me. would you rather be on your own?
The Doctor: No. Actually no. But. The last time, with Martha - like I said, it got complicated. And that was all my fault. I just want a mate.
Donna: You just want to mate?!
The Doctor: I just want a mate.
Donna: Well you're not mating with me, sunshine!
The Doctor: A mate! I just want a mate.
Donna: Well it's just as well, because I'm not having any of that nonense. I mean you're just a long streak of ... nothing! Alien nothing.
The Doctor: There we are then. ~ Russell T. Davies

Sir, I've known him ever since he was born! We've played snowball, and built snow-houses together, which are called igloos, and once, when one of Santa's reindeer was sick on Christmas Eve, Snow Bear stepped in to help with the presents, and load them on the sleigh - he's very kind, and clever, and strong, you know. ~ Suzy Davies

Every 30 seconds, it transmitted portions of [a Chopin Polonaise] to tell the world that the capital was still in Polish hands. Angered by the unexpected setback, the German High Command decided to pound the stubborn citadel into submission. In round-the-clock raids, bombers knocked out flourmills, gasworks, power plants and reservoirs, then sowed the residential areas with incendiaries. One witness, passing scenes of carnage, enumerated the horrors: 'Everywhere corpses, wounded humans, dead horses . . . and hastily-dug graves.' . . . Finally food ran out, and famished Poles, as one man put it, 'cut off flesh as soon as a horse fell, leaving only the skeleton.' On September 28, Warsaw Radio replaced the polonaise with a funeral dirge.15 ~ Norman Davies

An infant is a seed. Is it an oak seed or a cabbage seed? Who knows. All mothers think their children are oaks, but the world never lacks for cabbages. ~ Robertson Davies

Was it possible to feel love with an empty mind? For if the mind was empty, then it was empty of love too. ~ Luke Davies

The art of the quoter is to know when to stop. ~ Robertson Davies

His failure hurt too badly for that. It was a bad equation. Best erase it and try a new one.
If adults could put aside their obsessions with such firmness, the world would undoubtedly be a better place. Robertson Davies does not say that in his Deptford Trilogy ... but he strongly hints at it. ~ Stephen King

We live in a world where bulk is equated with quality. ~ Robertson Davies

Actually, I'm addicted to science fiction. Let me make my diction clear - I love sci-fi. ~ John Rhys-Davies

Dancing is a frenzyand a rage. ~ Sir John Davies

Through my scientific work I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it as a brute fact ... I cannot believe that our existence in this universe is a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama. ~ Paul Davies

A lot of our music came out of a lot of weird psychology and weird emotions. When you play the whole body of work, you get tossed all over the place. It's not easy listening. It's not even comfortable to listen to. ~ Dave Davies

Claws grabbed his head from behind, curving round his face, serrated talons gouging into his eyes ~ Neil Davies

There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all ... It seems as though somebody has fine tuned nature's numbers to make the Universe ... The impression of design is overwhelming. ~ Paul Davies

"You see, I do a little in this way myself," he explained; "here is my most prized piece." He took from his pocket a snuffbox, which looked to be of eighteenth-century workmanship. Inside the lid was an enamel picture of Leda and the Swan, and when a knob was pushed to and fro the swan thrust itself between Leda's legs, which jerked in mechanical ecstasy. A nasty toy, I thought, but Urky doted on it. "We single gentlemen like to have these things," he said. "What do you do, Darcourt? Of course we know that Hollier has his beautiful Maria."
To my astonishment Hollier blushed, but said nothing. His beautiful Maria? My Miss Theotoky, of New Testament Greek? I didn't like it at all. ~ Robertson Davies

I don't think I would ever write a book with what anybody could call pornography in it, because I feel that pornography is a cheat. It is an attempt to provide sexual experience by secondhand means. Now sex is a thing which has to be experienced firsthand, if you are really going to understand it, and pornography is rather like trying to find out about a Beethoven symphony by having somebody tell you about it and perhaps hum a few bars. It's not the same thing. Sex is primarily a question of relationships. Pornography is a do-it-yourself kit
a twenty-second best. ~ Robertson Davies

Nestled in the cabbage leaves,
bunny's snuggly and sound asleep ~ Suzy Davies

Life is wonderful, so revel in its beauty. Be all you can be, and let go of the past. It is nothing but shadows. ~ David Clement-Davies

Is there anything science should not try to explain? Science is knowledge and knowledge is power - power to do good or evil. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. ~ Paul Davies

Can a truly absurd universe so convincingly mimic a meaningful one? ~ Paul Davies

"Are we alone in the universe?" This is a question which goes back to the dawn of history, but for most of human history it has been in the province of religion and philosophy. Fifty or something years ago, however, it became part of science. ~ Paul Davies

Cosmologists have attempted to account for the day-to-day laws you find in textbooks in terms of fundamental 'superlaws,' but the superlaws themselves must still be accepted as brute facts. So maybe the ultimate laws of nature will always be off-limits to science. ~ Paul Davies

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. ~ Robertson Davies

'Othello' is the most domestic of Shakespeare's tragedies and the one that's likely to strike a personal note with a lot of people watching it. ~ Andrew Davies

The anthropic principle is an unfortunate name as it implies something about humanity. ~ Paul Davies

The standing orders of the Parliamentary Party, however, apply to me, apply to every other Member of the Parliamentary Labour Party and they put into a context the way in which those rights to freedom of speech should be exercised. ~ Ron Davies

It's only fashion that has said the pendulum has swung from extreme skepticism about extraterrestrial life to extreme credulity. The truth is somewhere in between. ~ Paul Davies

Thus it can be argued that quantum theory provides an opening for an idea of nature and of our role within it that is in general accord with certain religious concepts, but that, by contrast, is quite incompatible with the precepts of mechanistic deterministic classical physics. Thus the replacement of classical mechanics by quantum mechanics opens the door to religious possibilities that formerly were rationally excluded. ~ Paul Davies

I suppose I have the tastes of someone who teaches at a university in the provinces. ~ Andrew Davies

The dog is a yes-animal. Very popular with people who can't afford a yes man. ~ Robertson Davies

All you have to do is relax and feel your history, because it will never go away and there is no future without it. ~ Ray Davies

Almost everyone will find something in our services worth paying for. ~ Gavyn Davies

The vast bulk of Murdoch's news output, including the huge majority of any falsehood and distortion, is simply the spontaneous product of his highly commercialised newsrooms. It sells. ~ Nick Davies

Mr John Langdon Davies warns women 'that when children cease to be altogether desirable, women cease to be altogether necessary'. ~ Virginia Woolf

Actors endow the villain in fiction with a warmth and quality that makes them memorable. I think we like fictional villains because they're the Mr. Hyde of our own dreams. I've met a few real villains in my time, and they weren't the least bit sympathetic. ~ John Rhys-Davies

Myself: But wasn't the decision a right one? Am I not here? What more could Feeling have achieved than was brought about by Reason? ~ Robertson Davies

Something very worrying has been going on at Scotland Yard. We now know that in dealing with the phone-hacking affair at the 'News of the World,' they cut short their original inquiry; suppressed evidence; misled the public and the press; concealed information and broke the law. Why? ~ Nick Davies

That story placed man above the animals, until man's fall at Eve's hand, and linked humans to God himself, fashioned in his image. But now the black wolf was telling the girl a grave secret. That man was an animal too. ~ David Clement-Davies

What is this life so full of care,
We don't have time to stand and stare. ~ W.H. Davies

I think that songwriting changed when groups started spending more time in the studio. ~ Ray Davies

Not enough attention is paid to the negative side of fashion. Great effort is exerted to make people look smart, but somebody should face the fact that a lot of people never will be smart, and that they should be given some assistance in maintaining their fascinating dowdiness. ~ Robertson Davies

He thinks he is a flower to be looked at And when he pulls his frilly nylon pants right up tight He feels a dedicated follower of fashion. When a waiter at Buckingham Palace spilled soup on her dress: Never darken my Dior again! ~ Ray Davies

So let me give you a blessing. When everything around you seems conspiring to tear out your heart and your mind, or show you that there is nothing but power and survival, look up there, Kar, at the moon in the giant sky. Hold it as a truth, beyond what we are too blind or ignorant to see all around us. Hold it like love, Kar, and Remember me. ~ David Clement-Davies

For what made that in glory shine so long But poets' Pens, pluckt from Archangels' wings? ~ Sir John Davies

Now I want you to remember something because I don't think we shall meet again very soon. It is this; however fashionable despair about the world and about people may be at present, and however powerful despair may become in the future, not everybody, or even most people, think and live fashionably; virtue and honour will not be banished from the world, however many popular moralists and panicky journalists say so. Sacrifice will not cease to be because psychiatrists have popularized the idea that there is often some concealed, self-serving element in it; theologians always knew that. Nor do I think love as a high condition of honour will be lost; it is a pattern in the spirit, and people long to make the pattern a reality in their own lives, whatever means they take to do so. In short, Davey, God is not dead. And I can assure you God is not mocked. ~ Robertson Davies

When you get back to fundamental questions - 'Why should anything exist?' A, I'm not sure what the answer is in terms of the science, and B, I'm not sure that science can even ask that question. ~ John Rhys-Davies

The Conservative party found him an embarrassment because he was apt to criticize the party leader in public, the Liberals naturally wanted to defeat him, and the newspapers were out to get him. It was a dreadful campaign on his part, for he lost his head, bullied his electors when he should have wooed them, and got into a wrangle with a large newspaper, which he threatened to sue for libel. He was defeated on election day so decisively that it was obviously a personal rather than a political rejection. ~ Robertson Davies

Many billions of years will elapse before the smallest, youngest stars complete their nuclear burning and shrink into white dwarfs. But with slow, agonizing finality perpetual night will surely fall. ~ Paul Davies

I'm glad nobody has asked me to adapt 'Wuthering Heights' because I think I would make a mess of it. Everybody makes a mess of it. I think the Bronte Sisters are mad. ~ Andrew Davies

At the moment, in Britain we're facing such enormous cutbacks in education programs and music programs and art programs that you feel you are knocking your head against a brick wall. ~ Peter Maxwell Davies

No one can penetrate me. They only see what's in their own fancy, always. ~ Ray Davies

The official ideology [of Poland] is Marxism-Leninism, which no one openly admits to believing. For Marx expressed the German view, and Lenin the Russian one, and the meeting of these particular minds has always spelled Polish ruin. ~ Norman Davies

Good rock music always tends to be around. ~ Dave Davies

That's the nub of the thing, you see seriousness of spirit. It doesn't mean heaviness of heart, or a lack of fantasy, but it does mean an awareness of influences that touch our lives, sometimes in ways that seem cruel and unfeeling, and sometimes in ways that open up a glory which can never be forgotten. ~ Robertson Davies

So Leola thought that a modest romance with a hero in embryo could do no harm - might even be a patriotic duty. ~ Robertson Davies

Death,' whispered Tarlar, 'you do not fear it, Fell? By water, or any other way?'
'What is to fear? answered the black wolf. 'If it is an end, then so be it. For there is no pain in that, except the pain left to the living ... And if death is not an end, then what more than a wonderful journey ... ~ David Clement-Davies

Each evening the night swallowed the sun and gave the raven the sun's energy. He stored this power in his wings, tinged with the blue of Alaskan skies. ~ Suzy Davies

God is at work in my life and everything is unfolding as it should. ~ Helen Davies

The Doctor: The Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. And there it is: planet Earth at its height. Covered with megacities, five moons, population 96 billion. The hub of a galactic domain, stretching across a million planets, a million species. With mankind right in the middle.
[Adam faints]
The Doctor: [leans towards Rose, still looking out over the Earth] He's your boyfriend. ~ Russell T. Davies

No, it's the musicians and I must say they are an accomplished bunch, but odd, as musicians tend to be. Is it the vibration from their instruments, do you suppose, working on the brain? All that fraught buzzing? ~ Robertson Davies

My parents were always Welsh-speaking and very proud of Wales. ~ John Rhys-Davies

I like surfers. Their imagery, it's great. ~ Ray Davies

Cancer touches every family in one way or another. As other diseases are brought under control, cancer is set to become the number one killer, and is already in epidemic proportions worldwide. ~ Paul Davies

What makes me laugh about politics, sometimes, is it seems like once we get to a point where our problems are seemingly unsolvable, it's because we're looking through a wrong point of view. If we turn the thing on its head, then maybe we might see it differently. ~ Dave Davies

I am saying that in Wales here we have a very clear election commitment and I hope, and I will express this view, I hope that every individual member of the Labour Party, will understand that and will strive to achieve unity so that we can deliver the yes vote in the Autumn. ~ Ron Davies

Our repertoire consisted of rhythm and blues, sort of country rhythm and blues, Sonny Terry things. ~ Ray Davies

One of the things I've always thought is a drag in so many period adaptations is that they are always buttoned up to the neck in so many clothes all the time. I'm always looking for excuses to get them out of their clothes. ~ Andrew Davies

Children can be too hard on their parents, until they learn themselves how hard life can be. ~ David Clement-Davies

I don't think Emily was quite up to the demands of being everything to Chips. Love lays heavy burdens on the loved one, sometimes ~ Robertson Davies

Where weary folk toil, black with smoke, And hear but whistles scream, I went, all fresh from dawn and dew To carry them a dream. I went to bitter lanes and dark, Who once had known the sky, To carry them a dream-and found They had more dreams than I. ~ Mary Carolyn Davies

Cats go their own way, always. ~ Alison Davies

The only people who make any sense in the world are those who know that whatever happens to them has its roots in what they are. ~ Robertson Davies

For me, science is already fantastical enough. Unlocking the secrets of nature with fundamental physics or cosmology or astrobiology leads you into a wonderland compared with which beliefs in things like alien abductions pale into insignificance. ~ Paul Davies

The women we really love are the women who complete us, who have the qualities we can borrow and so become something nearer to whole men. Just as we complete them, of course; it's not a one-way thing. Leola and I, when romance was stripped away, were too much alike; our strengths and weaknesses were too nearly the same. Together we would have doubled our gains and our losses, but that isn't what love is. ~ Robertson Davies