A Quote by Earle Birney

The history of the development of contemporary writing in Vancouver from 1946 to 1960 is pretty largely a one-man show, and that man was me. — © Earle Birney
The history of the development of contemporary writing in Vancouver from 1946 to 1960 is pretty largely a one-man show, and that man was me.
I hate a stupid man who can't talk to me, and I hate a clever man who talks me down. I don’t like a man who is too lazy to make any effort to shine; but I particularly dislike the man who is always striving for effect. I abominate a humble man, but yet I love to perceive that a man acknowledges the superiority of my sex, and youth and all that kind of thing. . . A man who would tell me that I am pretty, unless he is over seventy, ought to be kicked out of the room. But a man who can't show me that he thinks me so without saying a word about it, is a lout.
I was lucky to book a show pretty quickly after getting to L.A., but I struggled getting started in Vancouver. If I had gotten those earlier roles in Vancouver, I wouldn't have gone to L.A. to get the show that launched my career.
I'm actually writing history. It isn't what you'd call big history. I don't write about presidents and generals... I write about the man who was ranching, the man who was mining, the man who was opening up the country.
(on A History of Western Philosophy) I was sometimes accused by reviewers of writing not a true history but a biased account of the events that I arbitrarily chose to write of. But to my mind, a man without a bias cannot write interesting history - if, indeed, such man exists.
Show me the man you honor; I know by that symptom, better than by any other, what kind of man you yourself are. For you show me there what your ideal of manhood is; what kind of man you long inexpressibly to be.
I am convinced that any photographic attempt to show the complete man is nonsense. We can only show, as best we can, what the outer man reveals. The inner man is seldom revealed to anyone, sometimes not even the man himself.
Mind you, I have had in my sojourn on earth as good a time of it as any man, so I can speak with some knowledge. A writer in the Manchester Guardian who is unknown to me lately described me as "the richest man in the world." That sounds a pretty big order, but when I come to think it out I believe he is not far wrong. A rich man is not necessarily a man with a whole pot of money but a man who is really happy. And I am that.
The highest point at which human life and art meet is in the ordinary. To look down on the ordinary is to despise what you can't have. Show me a man who fears being ordinary, and I'll show you a man who is not yet a man.
I'm from Vancouver and friends of mine will shoot something up in Vancouver and they'll be like, 'Ugh.' They've never been to Vancouver and they're like, 'They got me stuck in Vancouver for three months.' I'm like, 'No, you're being set free. It's one of the most livable cities in the entire world.'
I do not value any view of the universe into which man and the institutions of man enter very largely and absorb much of the attention. Man is but the place where I stand, and the prospect hence is infinite.
I grew up in Vancouver, which is a pretty liberal, gay Mecca of the West coast. There's San Francisco, and then there's Vancouver.
According to Biblical history and all of the history of the world, the blues was built in man from the beginning. The first thing that came out of man is the blues because, according to the Scriptures, when God made man, man was lonesome and blue.
If you write a piece, it's a different thing to show it to an editor than it is to show it to your best friend. You think, "Maybe she'll see through this or she'll see through that." That happened to me with my best friend back in Vancouver. I showed him "Just a Dream" and he took off the headphones halfway through and said, "Man, this is kind of garbage." He told me I needed to get singing lessons.
Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually clean kitchen, and 8 times out of 9 I'll show you a man with detestable spiritual qualities.
Show me a man who is a good loser and I'll show you a man who is playing golf with his boss.
Show me a man with a great golf game, and I’ll show you a man who has been neglecting something.
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