Canadian Biographer Quotes

The secret of biography resides in finding the link between talent and achievement. A biography seems irrelevant if it doesn't discover the overlap between what the individual did and the life that made this possible. Without discovering that, you have shapeless happenings and gossip.

The Canadian Identity, it seems, is truly elusive only at home. Beyond the borders Canadians know exactly who they are, within they see themselves as part of a family, a street, a neighbourhood, a community, a province, a region, and on special occasions like Canada Day and Grey Cup weekend and, of course, during the Winter Olympics, a country called Canada. Beyond the borders, they pine; within the borders, they more often whine

There is a gesture he has, a motion, that always reminds me of a great batter leaning into a hit. He has a way of throwing one foot forward, putting his head down a bit as he silently runs the valves, and then the cheeks bloom out in the way that has mystified his dentist for years, and he hits into the solo. When that foot goes forward like that, you know that John Birks Gillespie is no longer clowning. Stand back.