Quotes & Sayings About Quebec

We don't want two-tier health care in Canada - one tier for Quebec and another tier for the rest of the country. — Gordon Campbell

I have no family. My only responsibility is the welfare of Quebec. I belong to the province. — Maurice Duplessis

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

There's no question in my mind that there's a problem with the funding of our universities here in Quebec. — Pierre Moreau

My victory is your victory. My victory is the victory of a unified party, a party that wants to propose to the Quebec people a country that is free and a country that is independent. — Pauline Marois

'Mars et Avril' is a science fiction film. It's set in Montreal some 50 years in the future. No one had done that kind of movie in Quebec before because it's expensive, it's set in the future, and it's got tons of visual effects, and it's shot on green screen. — Martin Villeneuve

Long live free Quebec! — Charles De Gaulle

He walked over the arched stone bridge, enjoying the silence of the village. Snow did that. It laid down a simple, clean duvet that muffled all sound and kept everything beneath alive. Farmers and gardeners in Quebec wished for two things in winter: lots of snow and continuous cold. An early thaw was a disaster. It tricked the young
and vulnerable into exposing themselves, only to be nipped in the root. A killing frost. — Louise Penny

There was a young man of Quebec
Who was frozen in snow to his neck,
When asked, 'Are you Friz?'
He replied, 'Yes I is,
But we don't call this cold in Quebec.' — Rudyard Kipling

I can't think of this country without Quebec. Je parle francais. And when I think about being a Canadian, speaking French is part of it. — Michael Ignatieff

When the Canadian confederation took place in 1867, a lot of people in Quebec said, 'Could we have a referendum?' They said, 'Oh, no. In the British tradition, the Parliament can do anything, excluding changing a man into a woman, and, therefore, no referendum' - and that was that. — Jacques Parizeau

Everything bad about France was transferred to Quebec. — Jacques Villeneuve

All of us in Quebec - and I mean all of us - have allowed language to become a preoccupation that works to the disadvantage of all of us - and I mean all of us. — Richard Pound

All of a sudden, life became too much to bear. Just like that, for no particular reason. Because there was a child's corpse in the fridge on rue Parthenais. Because I had to start all over again from scratch, one more time. Because I had rolled my rock to the top of the hill and now it was rolling back down again. The times before, I'd always managed to put on a brave face. But there comes a time when you just don't feel strong enough to look for another place to live and go shopping again for clothes and dishes and cutlery and scouring pads and toilet paper. This was one of those times. When I got back to the hotel, I asked the Barbie at reception for the key to the minibar. It burned in the palm of my hand. I slapped it back down on the counter and ran out. I had to find a meeting. — Bernard Emond

I have decided to end my participation in public affairs and to resign my role as premier of Quebec. — Lucien Bouchard

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

I want my own country, not against Canada but for Quebec. — Gilles Duceppe

The anti-globalization movement is one of the biggest globalized events of the contemporary world, people coming from everywhere, -Australia, Indonesia, Britain, India, Poland, Germany, South Africa-to demonstrate in Seattle or Quebec. What could be more global than that? — Amartya Sen

Gentlemen, I would rather have written those lines than take Quebec tomorrow. — James Wolfe

To suggest that Quebecers willingly give up the chance to exercise fully their influence within the federal government would be to betray the historical role Quebec has always played in Confederation, and to undermine the legitimacy of their pride and ambitions. — Kim Campbell

In the world outside this glass room, songbirds are feeding and resting in the trees. Some will take off tonight and not land until they reach Venezuela. Sandpipers, plovers, and broad-winged hawks have already left for Patagonia and Panama. Bats are headed for caves in Kentucky and Tennessee. Out in the Atlantic, humpback whales pass by on their way to the Caribbean. Even now, Canada geese are honking toward us from Quebec. It is a good day for the beginnings of journeys.Every time I look at you, I think, Now I cannot die. — Sandra Steingraber

I am an English-speaking Canadian, but my entire family - Russian exiles and the Canadians they married - is buried in Quebec, and if Quebec were to separate, I would feel I had been cut in two. — Michael Ignatieff

It may interest for you to know that most Canadians in 2036 are some of the most efficient, ruthless and dangerous people I know. God help Quebec. — John Titor Foundation

All my career I've gone to teams on the decline. I went to Quebec when they were losing the Stastny brothers. I went to Edmonton after they lost Gretzky and Messier. I went to Anaheim when it was an expansion team. I came to Montreal after they'd won the Cup and were headed down. I was beginning to think it was me. — Ron Tugnutt

Long live Montreal, Long live Quebec! Long live Free Quebec! — Charles De Gaulle

As to whether Marcos is gay: Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, ... a Jew in Germany, a Gypsy in Poland, a Mohawk in Quebec, a pacifist in Bosnia, a single woman on the Metro at 10pm, a peasant without land, a gang member in the slums, an unemployed worker, an unhappy student and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains. — Subcomandante Marcos

But Quebec is an illuminating example of the truth that a decision is produced even more by the mental and moral dislocation of the command than by the physical dislocation of its forces. — B.H. Liddell Hart

Recognizing Quebec as being different, recognizing our history, recognizing our identity, has never meant a weakening of Quebec and has never been a threat to national unity. — Jean Charest

Books were everywhere in their large apartment. Histories, biographies, novels, studies on Quebec antiques, poetry. Placed in orderly bookcases. Just about every table had at least one book on it, and oftern several magazines. And the weekend newspapers were scattered on the coffee table in the living room, in front of the fireplace. If a visitor was the observant type, and made it further into the apartment to Gamache's study, he might see the story the books in there told. — Louise Penny

But who knew what would happen once he got to Canada? Canada with its pacifism and its socialized medicine! Canada with its millions of French speakers! It was like ... like ... like a foreign country! Father Mike might become a fugitive over there, living it up in Quebec. He might disappear into Saskatchewan and roam with the moose.
-Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides (2003), P. 507 — Jeffrey Eugenides

A Canadian woman was sentenced to 90 days in jail on Thursday for causing two deaths in 2010 when she stopped her car on a Quebec highway to help a group of ducklings crossing the road. — Anonymous

There is Ontario patriotism, Quebec patriotism, or Western patriotism; each based on the hope that it may swallow up the others, but there is no Canadian patriotism, and we can have no Canadian nation when we have no Canadian patriotism. — Henri Bourassa

The two of us had come a long way together from our humble beginnings and the basement apartment that had been our first home as newlyweds in 1957, when I was still a law student at Laval University in Quebec City. — Jean Chretien

Part geographical, part political, part cultural, Latin America overspills its bounds: is Belize Latin America? Quebec? Miami? Lavapies, Madrid? The Gaucho Grill, Manchester? — Jon Beasley-Murray

So my thing is we want come in and diffuse anything that's not real, anything that doesn't associate with real hip-hop. We want to be the one that says, 'Yo, we want to help build and build a bigger and better industry.' I'm just like, 'Yo, with talent from Toronto, Vancouver, Quebec. Who's paying attention?' — Raekwon

In Quebec, we're less inhibited artistically, culturally, politically. We're less focused on box office and comparing our films to the American films. — Philippe Falardeau

Cynicism lost and hope won. For the first time, the government of Quebec will be led by a woman. — Pauline Marois

At one point Trudeau mentioned to me that the National Gallery wanted to buy a masterpiece by the great Italian painter Lotto, and it needed a million dollars from the Treasury Board. "Is that Lotto-Quebec or Lotto-Canada?" I joked, but I got the message, and the National Gallery got the painting. — Jean Chretien

The biggest risk to Quebec isn't sovereignty. It is staying in Canada. — Pauline Marois

I always worked mostly in Quebec. I never thought of the States, somehow. I don't know - I don't have blue eyes or blond hair. I thought I didn't fit with the stereotype of America. — Karine Vanasse

I hope that one day the people of Quebec will one day be a part of the concert of nations. This is an internal debate. This will happen when Quebecers are ready. — Pauline Marois

We have a conservative government that only thinks in terms of efficiency. They are spending a lot of money on military expenses and less and less on culture. My position is that culture can actually be economically viable. When I make a film, the film costs $3 million. Now, in Quebec, it grossed $3.5 million, which is a small film. It's not a comedy. There are no stars in it. And, it still grosses $3.5 million. That's just in Quebec. — Philippe Falardeau

They're trying to kill me before I'm dead. I come to Quebec to spend some time with my family and they say I'm dead. — Pat Burns

Quebec City is the most European of any city in North America; they speak French all the time. There is a part of town called Old Quebec which is really like being in France. The architecture is just gorgeous, food, shopping. I'd say Quebec City is the most beautiful city in North America I've seen. — Sebastian Bach

Yes, Marcos is gay. Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a Jew in Germany, a Gypsy in Poland, a Mohawk in Quebec, a pacifist in Bosnia, a single woman on the Metro at 10pm, a peasant without land, a gang member in the slums, an unemployed worker, an unhappy student and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains.
Marcos is all the exploited, marginalised, oppressed minorities resisting and saying 'Enough'. He is every minority who is now beginning to speak and every majority that must shut up and listen. He is every untolerated group searching for a way to speak. Everything that makes power and the good consciences of those in power uncomfortable -- this is Marcos. — Subcomandante Marcos

One afternoon late in October of the year 1697, Euclide Auclair, the philosopher apothecary of Quebec, stood on the top of Cap Diamant gazing down the broad, empty river far beneath him. — Willa Cather

By the time they had called at the baker's and climbed to the top of Cap Diamant, the sun, dropping with incredible quickness, had already disappeared. They sat down in the blue twilight to eat their bread and await the turbid afterglow which is peculiar to Quebec in autumn; the slow, rich, prolonged flowing-back of crimson across the sky, after the sun has sunk behind the dark ridges of the west. Because of the haze in the air the colour seems thick, like a heavy liquid, welling up wave after wave, a substance that throbs, rather than a light. — Willa Cather

For years, "Sorry, I don't speak French" has been the reflexive response of English-speaking Canadians to a request, a comment, or a greeting in the other official language. Part apology, part defiance, it is a declaration of the otherness. That is not me. I don't do that. The language barrier is her, at this counter, now. — Graham Fraser

My quality of life here in Quebec City is extraordinary. — Patrick Roy

Quebec does not have Opinions, but only sentiments. — Wilfrid Laurier

We have this historic problem that we have a quarter of our population, the people of Quebec, who have never signed on to the Constitution. That can't go on forever. — Jack Layton

We do not want the Quebec nation to disappear. — Pauline Marois

Food from Quebec is not known to be amazing. Actually, even though you can eat really, really well in Montreal, it's crazy. It's one of the best cities I eat in, but typical Quebec food is like food from people that work in the woods. It's potatoes, meat and sauce. — Charlotte Le Bon

I'll be a Quebecker-Canadian. I'm from Quebec, and every time I go to a country, I say that. It's my roots, my origins, and it's the most important thing to me. — Celine Dion

Secessionists, whether in Scotland, Catalonia, Quebec or anywhere else, invariably assume that a person must either be Scottish or British, Catalan or Spanish, Quebecois or Canadian. What about those who feel they are both? — Michael Ignatieff

Their approach is to exploit divisions rather than bridge them. Perhaps that's an effective political strategy, but it's lousy way to govern a country, especially one as diverse as ours. Once you've divided people against one another - East against West, urban against rural, Quebec against the rest of Canada - so you can win an election, it's very hard to pull them back together again to solve our shared problems. — Justin Trudeau

Well, I am trying to put Quebec in its place - and the place of Quebec is in Canada, nowhere else. — Pierre Trudeau

Amanda meant to move, but somehow her feet didn't do anything. They were like Quebec, determined to be independent. — Erin McCarthy

If it's cross-country ski season, I'll be out doing that, or snowshoeing up in Quebec. In my California home, I go to the local Y and I like doing yoga. It's been hugely beneficial to me in injury avoidance. — Neil Peart

Men propound mathematical theorems in besieged cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on the scaffold, discuss a new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache; it is our nature. — C.S. Lewis

From that moment on, there will be an irreversible process to separate Quebec from Canada. — Jean Charest

Aline and I have travelled a very long, very hard road together, from our working class homes in rural Quebec to the palaces of London, Paris, Moscow, and Beijing. Politics was the route, public service the reward. — Jean Chretien

Everything we did was done in form and with propriety, and the result of our proceedings is the document [the Quebec Resolutions] that has been submitted to the imperial government as well as to this house and which we speak of here as a treaty. And that there may be no doubt about our position in regard to that document we say, question it you may, reject it you may, or accept it you may, but alter it you may not. (Hear, hear. — Thomas D'Arcy McGee

If you look at the Oscars and look at the Best Foreign Language series, you see that the films are coming from everywhere - from Quebec, Israel, Poland, and Belgium. It's not the usual French, German, etc. This category is opening up to socially engaged and political films. I think we're going to see a cross over to the main categories also. It's part of this global environment now and I'm grateful that the Academy is having this window on world cinema. — Philippe Falardeau

Attempting to build a language wall around Quebec is precisely the wrong policy to follow. It will keep out of Quebec exactly what we need to attract by way of talent and capital; it will drive our best - francophones as well as allophones and anglophones, with their talents and capital - to leave Quebec. — Richard Pound

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

If you're big in Montreal, you're big in Quebec. If you're big in Toronto, you're big in Canada. But if you're big in New York, you're big in the rest of the world. — Shane Smith

Look at what has occurred in history. When the Berlin Wall fell, it was not surprising, but it was unexpected. Who predicted the Arab Spring? Nobody expected it, but all the ingredients were there. I think all the ingredients are also there for Quebec to become a country. But when? That's another question. — Gilles Duceppe

Why should Canada, wild and unsettled as it is, impress us as an older country than the States, unless because her institutions are old? All things appeared to contend there, as I have implied, with a certain rust of antiquity, such as forms on old armor and iron guns,
the rust of conventions and formalities. It is said that the metallic roofs of Montreal and Quebec keep sound and bright for forty years in some cases. But if the rust was not on the tinned roofs and spires, it was on the inhabitants and their institutions. — Henry David Thoreau

Our climate leadership team has recommended it go up and I would say there's always going to be upward pressure to raise the carbon tax. Remember, we're already double what the only other province who has a carbon tax is at right now, Quebec - they peg it at about $15 a tonne. — Christy Clark

Content is not mere facts, drummed into tender little minds under the relentless pounding of rote learning. Content--even the date of the Quebec Act, Confederation, or the Battle of Vimy Ridge, or the name of the first prime minister-- is cultural capital, a basic requirement of life that every Canadian needs to comprehend the daily newspaper, to watch the TV news or a documentary, or to argue about politics and cast a reasonably informed vote. In an increasingly complex and immediate world, cultural capital must also include some knowledge of Europe, Africa, and Asia, too. — J.L. Granatstein

We can make the United States a 'Hispanic Quebec' without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. — Richard Lamm

Canada's eminent position today is a tribute to the patience, tolerance, and strength of character of her people, of both French and British strains. For Canada is enriched by the heritage of France as well as of Britain, and Quebec has imparted the vitality and spirit of France itself to Canada. Canada's notable achievement of national unity and progress through accommodation, moderation and forbearance can be studied with profit by her sister nations. — Harry S. Truman

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

I spent much of my childhood in northern Quebec, and often there was no radio, no television - there wasn't a lot to entertain us. When it rained, I stayed inside reading, writing, drawing. — Margaret Atwood

I'd rather be referred to as a precocious young Quebec talent, than not be referred to at all. — Xavier Dolan

It's a little-known fact that most terrorist groups fail, and that all of them die. Lest this seem hard to believe, just reflect on the world around you. Israel continues to exist, Northern Ireland is still a part of the United Kingdom, and Kashmir is a part of India. There are no sovereign states in Kurdistan, Palestine, Quebec, Puerto Rico, Chechnya, Corsica, Tamil Eelam, or Basque Country. The Philippines, Algeria, Egypt, and Uzbekistan are not Islamist theocracies; nor have Japan, the United States, Europe, and Latin America become religious, Marxist, anarchist, or new-age utopias. The numbers confirm the impressions. — Steven Pinker

Nate had been born and raised in British Columbia, and Canadians hate, above all things, to offend. It was part of the national consciousness. "Be polite" was an unwritten, unspoken rule, but ingrained into the psyche of an entire country. (Of course, as with any rule, there were exceptions: parts of Quebec, where people maintained the "dismissive to the point of confrontation, with subsequent surrender" mind-set of the French; and hockey, in which any Canadian may, with impunity, slam, pummel, elbow, smack, punch, body-check, and beat the shit out of, with sticks, any other human being, punctuated by profanities, name-calling, questioning parentage, and accusations of bestiality, usually-coincidentally- in French.) — Christopher Moore

We lived in Northern Quebec, and the nearest school was thirty miles away, so my mother took on the task of home schooling me. She spoke to some friends, received some instructions from the provincial school board, and found some interesting books that perhaps I might find useful. — Willard Boyle

We were always expected to see Quebec's side of things, but there was damned little reciprocity. — Judy LaMarsh

At the Quebec prison, he had read Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope, then had autographed the book and given it to a guard for a souvenir. — Erik Larson

And then I said to her, Rachel, you're out of your ever-lovin' mind. There's no way in h-e-double-toothpicks you'd find me hookin' up with a faery, especially one of the unseelie court, no matter how well hung he is. Ya just never know with them, do ya? I hear about a witch in Quebec who crossed one of the unseelie princes, and she ended up with three breasts. Can you imagine what she goes through trying to find a bra that fits? — Katie MacAlister

The clouds crossed the sky, country rains washed the gardens, moons shone on the lake and the hillsides, cicadas sang in the August grass, boys and girls fell in love. In the early October of that year, in the cathedral hush of a Quebec Indian summer with the lake drawing into its mirror the fire of the maples, it came to me that to be able to love the mystery surrounding us is the final and only sanction of human existence. What else is left but that, in the end? All our lives we had wanted to belong to something larger than ourselves. We belonged consciously to nothing now except to the pattern of our lives and fates. To God, possibly. I am chary of using that much-misused word, but I say honestly that at least I was conscious of His power. Whatever the spirit might be I did not know, but I knew it was there. Life was a gift; I knew that now. And so, much more consciously, did she. — Hugh MacLennan

You ever want to negotiate a hostage situation in Quebec, I'm your man. Send me in for a little parley and the francophone miscreants will flee, hands over bleeding ears. — Will Ferguson

Canada is like an old cow. The West feeds it. Ontario and Quebec milk it. And you can well imagine what it's doing in the Maritimes. — Tommy Douglas

I knew that the wall was the main thing in Quebec, and had cost a great deal of money ... In fact, these are the only remarkable walls we have in North America, though we have a good deal of Virginia fence, it is true. — Henry David Thoreau

I'd really love to go for a fourth trip into space with maybe Mr. Duceppe and Mr. Boisclair, and I am convinced, I am convinced that after such a trip, Quebec sovereignty will no longer be an issue. Space travel affects us that much. — Marc Garneau

In the province of Quebec where I come from, we speak French, and the only cosmopolitan city is Montreal. Every time we tackle the subject of immigration and racial tension, it's an issue that concerns Montreal. — Philippe Falardeau

I'm writing a political comedy that takes place in Canada in Quebec. It's funny. Saying political comedy is a little redundant but it's a first. I've never done any comedy per se. — Philippe Falardeau

Why would it be ridiculous that Quebec has an army? — Gilles Duceppe

New Canada must be workable without Quebec, but it must be open and attractive enough to include a New Quebec. — Preston Manning

Quebec from the boat looked like the ramparts where Hamlet's ghost might have walked. — Charlie Chaplin

Ten years ago, in the aftermath of the referendum in Quebec, the very existence of Canada was on the line ... I had a responsibility to ensure that Canada never again came close to the precipice, — Jean Chretien