Great Canadian Quotes & Sayings

One of the first problems to be faced at Niagara was how to get a wire over the gorge and its violent river. Ellet solved that nicely by offering five dollars to the first American boy to fly a kite over to the Canadian side. The prize was won by young Homer Walsh, who would tell the story for the rest of his days. Once the kite string was across, a succession of heavier cords and ropes was pulled over, and in a short time the first length of wire went on its way. After that, when the initial cable had been completed, Ellet decided to demonstrate his faith in it in a fashion people would not forget. He had an iron basket made up big enough to hold him and attached it to the cable with pulleys. Then stepping inside, on a morning in March 1848, he pulled himself over the gorge and back again, all in no more than fifteen minutes' time, and to the great excitement of crowds gathered along both rims. — David McCullough

I continued a legacy of great skating from this country and I was able to capitalize on the reputation of the Canadian skaters that came before me. I especially mean Brian Orser. — Kurt Browning

If someone else made 'Up in the Air' or 'Thank You For Smoking' or 'Juno,' I would have wanted to rip their head off. I need that same sort of passion for every project I take on. — Jason Reitman

My great hope would be that Quebec would realize itself fully as a distinct part of Canada, and stay Canadian, bringing to Canada a part of its richness. — Gabrielle Roy

I always keep moments that were defining for me in my past and challenged me in my past - from getting evicted out of my apartment when I was 14 years old, to being cut from the CFL [Canadian Football League] and only having 7 bucks in my pocket, to bouts with depression - I keep moments like that very close to me because it continues to be great motivators for me. It helps keep me grounded, and it's a good reminder of how things work, and I never want to go back to that. — Dwayne Johnson

Canadian money is also called the loony. How can you take an economic crisis seriously? — Robin Williams

Will it be a great source of comfort to certain Canadian boys to know that the bullet that maimed them for life was made from Canadian nickel sold by the International Nickel Company? — Tommy Douglas

The old boy network is still too strong in Canadian business. A visit to the Toronto clubs at lunch stands in about as great a contrast to the multicultural, multiracial subway underneath as can be humanly imagined. This is not healthy. — Bob Rae

The great themes of Canadian history are as follows: Keeping the Americans out, keeping the French in, and trying to get the Natives to somehow disappear. — Will Ferguson

When the album was done I loved it. It was a mixture of electric and acoustic solo performances with dubs. I called it Le Noise, after Dan. It was a French Canadian joke, a very English was of saying Lanois. I was doing a show that introduced a lot of the songs, and things were going great. I was very happy. — Neil Young

Royal Canadian Air Farce, and I was in three sketches there. And they wrote some really great stuff for me. — Trish Stratus

Praying because you're afraid is not like praying because you have faith. Faith and fear never meet. If you are faithful and still feel scared, it's whether you're not praying right or not praying at all. — Sandra Chami Kassis

[Stephen] Harper had said he would use all legal means, and what [John] Baird suggested was an option the prome minister was considering. If the governor general had refused his request, he could have replaced her with a more compliant one, making the case to the Queen that the people of Canada were opposed in great numbers to a coalition replacing his government. — Lawrence Martin

Great Canadian comics are often outsiders and insiders at the same time. That's a great perspective for a comedian. — David Steinberg

I lived in San Pedro, California, which is, you know, on the west side of California, and it's where many, many Japanese lived. — Yuri Kochiyama

Belikov is a sick, evil man who should be thrown into a pit of rabid vipers for the great offense he commited against you this morning."
"Thank you." I said primly. Then, I considered. "Can vipers be rabid?"
"I don't see why not. Everything can be. I think. Canadian geese might be worse than vipers, though."
"Canadian geese are deadlier than vipers?"
"You ever try to feed those little bastards? They're vicious. You get thrown to vipers, you die quickly. But the geese? That'll go on for days. More suffering."
"Wow. I don't know whether I should be impressed or frightened that you've thought about all of this. — Richelle Mead

I use an Electrix repeater [for live looping]. It works ... it's unstable and the MIDI implementation was written by a sped. I think it's Canadian but that may be a coincidence. I've been through all sorts, the original jam man was great but clicked on the loop if you didn't get it just right, something I am familiar with. As I said in another answer I have an RC50 but haven't fired it up yet. On paper it looks great. — Robin Guthrie

We can control the future, my boy, just as we wind up the mechanism in a clock. Say to yourself: I will win that race
I will come first
and you wind up the future like clockwork. The world has no choice but to obey! Can the hands of that old clock in the corner decide to stop? Can the spring in your watch decide to wind itself up and run backward? No! They have no choice. And nor has the future, once you have wound it up. — Philip Pullman

They are the largest collection of freshwater lakes in the world. They border eight U.S. states and the Canadian Providence of Ontario and at time have supplied water to one-third of Canadians and one-seventh of Americans. They're vaster than the entire New England region and define beachfront to many people who have never seen an ocean. — Susan Magsamen

What did I tell you about Mister Safety Catch?' said Vimes weakly.
When Mister Safety Catch Is Not On, Mister Crossbow Is Not Your Friend,' recited Detritus, saluting. — Terry Pratchett

I've got some other great teammates like Dallas Robinson and Johnny Quinn on the men's side who have been tremendous at showing Christ's love. It's not just the US teams, but there are also many believers from the international community including several from the Canadian team. We hope to grow Christianity throughout our sport. — Elana Meyers

One of the things that happens to people in grief is they secretly think they're crazy, because they realize they are thinking things that don't make sense. — Joan Didion

But Sir, he works with NT? Why would he tell us where to go? Aren't we the competition?' Satya asked.
Nagesh shook his head gravely. 'Actually the competition starts at the headquarters and is between the people who come on TV, and want to make sure their face is noticed by the rival channel, so that they get picked up for a higher salary. Between us camerapersons, there is no rivalry. We don't do piece to cameras, we don't come on TV. We do all the jostling to get you the best visuals to show on the channel. We just want to get the news to the viewers, no matter which logo is pasted on it. — Shweta Ganesh Kumar

Everybody dreams, but memory for dreams is famously elusive. Even Sigmund Freud, without the benefit of modern technology's electroencephalogram, or EEG, did not know that adult humans dream 90 minutes per night, and that newborns spend eight hours per day dreaming (out of their 16 hours of sleep). REM sleep helps grow the brain! — Charles McPhee

It was funny on '24' because I'm a Scots-Canadian, and I was working with the great Scottish actor Tony Curran, and we were both playing Russian gangsters. — Callum Keith Rennie

I'd like to give people leaden boots in galleries, so they'd be a bit slower in front of my paintings. And that's because I spend so much time looking at them. I can look at them a long, long time without getting bored. I disappear. — Gary Hume

A burned-out face trying not to break open at the horror he has seen. The way they look at you, those poor broken men; it's not empty or terrified at all. It's as if you were the first sign of life, of beauty, after a long, long winter. Does love always form, like a pearl, around these hardened bits of life? — Andrew Sean Greer

The source of our art then is not in the achievements of other artists in other days and lands, although it has learned a great deal from these, our art is founded on a long and growing love and understanding of the North in an ever clearer experience of oneness with the informing spirit of the whole land and a strange brooding sense of Mother Nature fostering a new race and a new age ... So the Canadian artist was drawn North. — Lawren Harris

I think the Canadian Football League is a great league, but it's not the NFL, and I'm not Jerry Rice. — Darren Flutie

When the death toll among British troops was added to that of the carriers the official 'butcher's bill' in the East Africa campaign exceeded 100,000 souls. The true figure was undoubtedly much higher: as many a British official admitted, 'the full tale of the mortality among [the] native carriers will never be told'.2 Even 100,000 deaths is a sobering enough figure. It is almost double the number of Australian or Canadian or Indian troops who gave their lives in the Great War; indeed it is equivalent to the combined casualties - the dead and wounded - sustained by Indian troops. It is as if the entire African workforce employed at the time in the mines of South Africa had been wiped out. Yet the East Africa campaign remains, by and large, a forgotten theatre of war. — Edward Paice

So far, Vancouver is my favorite relocation city. It feels like home. Parts of it remind me of the east coast. It's very clean. The food is great. And the people are lovely. Not that I didn't love working in other glamorous locations like Downey, Detroit, Cleveland or Bulgaria ... but, damn, it is fun to be Canadian. — Rachel Nichols

To be Canadian is to live in relative calm and with great dignity. — William Davis

She remembered her fingers threaded through his hair and his kisses in places that made her long for him years later. — Whitney Otto

Canada is destined to be one of the great nations of the world and Canadian women must be ready for citizenship. — Nellie L. McClung

Being stress and anxiety free is a human preset, I just show you how to 'flick the switch' to off. Permanent stress and anxiety recovery is possible quickly and simply despite what many are told. — Charles Linden

Also, my humor is really dry-witted, Canadian humor, so some people get it and some people don't. I'd be great on "The Office." I would like to be on that show. And, I could see me doing romantic comedy films, and stuff like that. — Tinsel Korey

no one else on this earth is responsible for your happiness and your health except you. — Charlene Richard

In the theatre, we're all charlatans and liars and scavengers and fly-by-nights. — Simon McBurney

I'm intolerant often, especially of incompetence, particularly my own. — Liz Trotta

Canadians are friends and Quebecers are my family. What France knows deep down is that within this great Canadian people, there is a Quebec nation. I do not see how proving my family, brotherly love for Quebec should be strengthened by defying Canada. — Nicolas Sarkozy

Now that I'm afraid was institutionalized, and the great thing about the Canadian content regulations is that it broke that open. I mean it broke it open because people were faced with no choice, but to really start listening to these records and find the ones that they could play. It didn't take long for Canadian radio to go "Wow! We're not going broke doing this, it's not killing us, the audience isn't complaining." — Bernie Finkelstein

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

I grew up in Winnipeg, in the Canadian midwest, the fifth child. It was a great household to grow up in - I was loved to sweet death. — Len Cariou