Ottawa Quotes

Ottawa - a sub-arctic lumber-village converted by royal mandate into a political cockpit. ~ Goldwin Smith

On a craggy bluff above the majestic Ottawa River stands the remarkable embodiment of our system of governance: Parliament. ~ John Allen Fraser

Withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan ... Collect our own revenue from personal income tax ... Resume provincial responsibility for health-care policy. If Ottawa objects to provincial policy, fight in the courts ... [E]ach province should raise its own revenue for health ... It is imperative to take the initiative, to build firewalls around Alberta ... ~ Stephen Harper

I used to live on a reserve, but I went back and forth between my reserve and Ottawa where my father lived, so I kind of had a double life growing up. ~ Kaniehtiio Horn

The spineless pussy willows in Ottawa are actually helping to condition the Canadian public to accept the surrender of our country, which American forces were unable to accomplish in 1776 and 1812. ~ Paul Hellyer

The problem, the only problem, is my mother. And she is the one of course that I am trying to get; it is to reach her that this whole journey has been undertaken. With what purpose? To mark her off, to describe, to illumine, to celebrate, to get rid of her; and it did not work, for she looms too close, just as she always did. She is heavy as always, she weighs everything down, and yet she is indistinct, her edges melt and flow. Which means she has stuck to me as close as ever and refused to fall away, and I could go on, and on, applying what skills I have, using what tricks I know, and it would always be the same. ~ Alice Munro

I was born in the Ottawa General Hospital right after the Gray Cup Football Game in 1939. Six months later, I was backpacked into the Quebec bush. I grew up in and out of the bush, in and out of Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie and Toronto. ~ Margaret Atwood

You can never capture a person in picture, never. You might get an interesting expression or gesture. I almost never research a picture subject ahead of time. I think Karsh is full of baloney. Can you imagine spending a whole week out in La Jolla with Jonas Salk soaking up his ambiance, then wind up making him look as if he's in the studio in Ottawa with his thumb under his chin? ~ Duane Michals

Progressive Conservative candidates from Quebec want to exert real power in Ottawa, not simply be content with playing a secondary role. ~ Kim Campbell

I had no inkling of how crazy the political life would turn out to be. You shuttle between your constituency and Ottawa, you try to make every barbecue, festival, parade and charity run, but sometimes you feel pulled in 14 directions at once. ~ Michael Ignatieff

If Ottawa giveth, then Ottawa can taketh away. ~ Stephen Harper

I went to elementary school in Ottawa, and then to a private secondary school. ~ Douglass North

Stat Watch 67 words In a survey 91% of university staff members said they had been ignored, avoided, shut out of conversations, or treated as invisible during the previous year, according to a study led by Jane O'Reilly, of the University of Ottawa. Research shows that ostracism does more psychological harm and causes higher turnover than outright harassment, which is far less common. ~ Anonymous

What Ottawa and Washington used to think about Turkey or Iran was not very important because we really didn't think much about either, but now what we think about them is extremely important - to ourselves and to many other peoples. ~ Arthur Hays Sulzberger

I became a big Kings fan, and then later on my hometown of Ottawa got a team, so then I was very, very torn. I just love both of those teams very much. ~ Matthew Perry

The fact is, the primary way that Ottawa and Washington deal with Native people is to ignore us. They know that the court system favors the powerful and the wealthy and the influential, and that, if we buy into the notion of an impartial justice system, tribes and bands can be forced through a long, convoluted, and expensive process designed to wear us down and bankrupt our economies.
Be good. Play by our rules. Don't cause a disturbance. ~ Thomas King

While I've won five Junos, I've donated four of them to the National Archives in Ottawa. Which left my fifth Juno sitting, seemingly abandoned by its four family members, on my bookcase in my dining room. ~ Dan Hill

Where did your grandparents live, anyway?"
Blake makes a dismissive motion with his hand. "The West Bumfuck farmland well outside of Ottawa--"
West Bumfuck? Sounds like my kind of place. ~ Sarina Bowen

We want to build the most entrepreneurial postsecondary system in North America. That's why we're pleased that academic institutions, like Algonquin College, University of Ottawa and Carlton University are working to make that happen through the Campus-Linked Accelerator program. They are helping nurture our business visionaries and igniting their entrepreneurial spirit, helping them to succeed and to expand our economy. ~ Bob Chiarelli

Some years later I met Queen Elizabeth II, in our capital Ottawa at a Canada Day celebration. David Foster and I were doing the show and we both met her afterwards. She told me how much she loved the Canadian Railroad Trilogy. She looked at me and said, "oh, that song", and then said again, "that song", and that was all she said. ~ Gordon Lightfoot

imagine that
it were given back to me to be
the child who knew departure would be sweet,
the boy who drew square-rigged ships, the girl who knew
truck routes from ottawa to mexico,
the me who found a door in latin verse
and made a map out of hexameters. ~ Marilyn Hacker

My family was a good family, I had a great Canadian education and I came up in a great, little town like Ottawa. ~ Paul Anka

With the year off, I think most guys were excited to get going, but coming to Ottawa, a new place, made me even more excited. ~ Dany Heatley

Ontario's gas tax rebates and infrastructure programs help create sustainable transit to improve quality of life for Ottawa residents with significant environmental benefits. ~ Bob Chiarelli

I guess my natural inclination is to finish what I started. We have a Conservative government in Nova Scotia. What I want to see is a Conservative government in Ottawa. ~ Peter MacKay

Whenever it was necessary to have a large entourage, we used military vehicles or, as for the two state funerals and our state swearing in, we hired every spare Cadillac from every undertaking firm in Ottawa. It's a make-shift way to operate a country of the size and rank of Canada. ~ Judy LaMarsh

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. ~ Lawrence R. Klein

The red aborigines,
Leaving natural breaths, sounds of rain and winds, calls as of birds and animals in the woods, syllabled to us for names,
Okonee, Koosa, Ottawa, Monongahela, Sauk, Natchez, Chattahoochee, Kaqueta, Oronoco,
Wabash, Miami, Saginaw, Chippewa, Oshkosh, Walla-Walla,
Leaving such to the States, they melt, they depart, charging the water and the land with names."


-from "Starting from Paumanok ~ Walt Whitman