Following the death of his wife, Sam Johnson wrote to the Reverend Mr. Thomas Weirton, "I have ever since seemed to myself broken off from mankind; a kind of solitary wanderer in the wilds of life, without any certain direction, or fixed point of view: a gloomy gazer on a world to which I have little relation." But my wife wasn't dead, merely absent.

— Mordecai Richler

Fundamentally all writing is about the same thing: it's about dying the brief flicker of time we have here and the frustrations that it creates.

— Mordecai Richler

I don't hold with shamans, witch doctors, or psychiatrists. Shakespeare, Tolstoy, or even Dickens, understood more about the human condition than ever occurred to any of you. You overrated a bunch of charlatans deal with the grammar of human problems, and the writers I've mentioned with the essence.

— Mordecai Richler

If Canada had a soul (a doubtful proposition, Moses thought) then it wasn't to be found in Batch or the Plains of Abraham or Fort Walsh or Charlottetown or Parliament Hill, but in The Caboose and thousands of bars like it that knit the country together from Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, to the far side of Vancouver Island.

— Mordecai Richler

...if I were an angel of the Lord, I would mark the doors of each of my children's homes with an X, so that plague and misfortune would pass over them. Alas, I lack the qualifications. So when there was still world and time enough I fretted. I nagged. I corrected. Furthermore, I got everything wrong.

— Mordecai Richler

I'm rambling again. Wandering off the point. But this is the true story of my wasted life...

— Mordecai Richler

In a nutshell, I am not unaware of my failings. Neither am I a stranger to irony.

— Mordecai Richler

It seems to me that our lives are consumed by countless wasting years, but only a few shining moments. I missed mine. Yes is what I should have said. Of course, I should have said yes.

— Mordecai Richler

I work every day-or at least I force myself into my office or room. I may get nothing done but you don't earn bonuses without putting in time. Nothing may come for three months but you don't earn the fourth without it.

— Mordecai Richler

I work every day-or at least I force myself into my office or room. I may get nothing done but you don't earn bonuses without putting in time. Nothing may come for three months but you don't get the fourth without it.

— Mordecai Richler