Tomorrow country then, tomorrow country now. Mordecai Richler More Quotes by Mordecai Richler More Quotes From Mordecai Richler Wherever I travel I'm too late. The orgy has moved elsewhere. Mordecai Richler lateelsewheretoo-late Thousands of miles of wheat, indifference, and self- apology. Mordecai Richler wheatapologyself So far as one can generalize, the most graciouis, cultivated, and innovative people in this country are French Canadians. Certainly they have given us the most exciting politicians of our time: Trudeau, Lévesque. Without them, Canada would be an exceedingly boring and greatly diminished place. Mordecai Richler would-becountrypeople For the record, pot, like the Reader's Digest , is not necessarily habit-forming, but both can lead to hard-core addiction : heroin, in one case, abridged bad books, in the other. Either way you look at it, a withdrawal from a meaningful life. Mordecai Richler addictionmeaningfulbook Well, people have been wondering what's going to happen to the novel for two hundred years; its death has been announced many times. You know, I think the novel keeps redefining the world we live in. What you should look for in a novel is a window nobody else is looking out of, that nobody else can look through. What you look for is a voice. You pick up a novel by someone such as Faulkner or Hemingway and you just read three pages and you know who wrote it. And that's what one should demand of a novelist. Mordecai Richler twoyearsthinking Well, when I was a young writer the people we read were Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Sartre, Camus, Celine, Malraux. And to begin with, I was a bit of a copycat writer and very derivative and tried to write a novel using their voices, really.... I keep it out of print. Mordecai Richler voicewritingpeople I have always been skeptical of medical orthodoxies, because sooner, rather than later, so many of them are turned on their heads. Or, put another way, providing you are prepared to wait it out, what was adjudged bad for you yesterday is likely to prove beneficial today. Mordecai Richler waitingyesterdaytoday Listen your Lordship, I'm a respecter of institutions. Even in Paris, I remained a Canadian. I puffed hashish, but I didn't inhale. Mordecai Richler hashishinstitutionsparis Actually, when it comes to knocking the Canadian cultural scene, nobody outdoes Canadians, myself included. We are veritable masters of self-deprecation. Mordecai Richler knockingsceneself The Canadian kid who wants to grow up to be Prime Minister isn't thinking big, he is setting a limit to his ambitions rather early. Mordecai Richler growing-upambitionkids Fiorito has all the right stuff. His splendid memoir about his relationship with his dying father belongs on that small shelf with Philip Roth's Patrimony and Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes. Mordecai Richler ashesdyingfather It is no more expected of most producers to read a book than it is, say, of Ted Williams to dust off home plate. Mordecai Richler dusthomebook I'm criticized by the feminists, by the Jewish establishment, by Canadian nationalists. And why not? I've had my pot shots at them. I'm fair game. Mordecai Richler why-notfeministgames I'm world-famous ... all over Canada. Mordecai Richler world-famouscanadaworld The process hasn't changed, but the writer has developed. I still get up every morning and go to work. Mordecai Richler get-upprocessmorning This is an age of scientific wonders. You miss somebody so you pick up the phone to say hello. Three minutes for sixty-five cents. Nobody goes broke. Mordecai Richler phonesagemissing I had, like any other young novelist, started out by believing the difficult thing was to get published and that, once you managed that, well, your financial problems were over. I discovered, like any other serious novelist, that actually they had only just begun. Mordecai Richler financial-problemsnovelistsbelieve A novel may take anywhere from two to five years to write and, in the end, you might manage a couple of thousand dollars on it, no more. Mordecai Richler couplewritingyears If you're writing a novel, you're in a room for three or four years. There's not much coming in from the outside. Mordecai Richler threewritingyears And furthermore did you know that behind the discovery of America there was a Jewish financier? Mordecai Richler behindsdiscoveryamerica
