Famous Quotations

A few wise and witty statements by Robert Zend, published in John Robert Colombo's Canadian Quotations have made their way around the internet and into inspirational calendars, posters, student essays and so on:

From www.quotespictures.net

"People," Beyond Labels, p. 60

---

More quotations:

Short Essay on Human Dignity:
Nobody is Nobody.
- Robert Zend

World's Shortest Pessimistic Poem
Hope?
Nope.
- Robert Zend, in The Maple Laugh Forever: An Anthology of Comic Canadian Poetry, eds. Douglas Barbour and Stephen Scobie (Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1981)

Being a poet does not depend on the geographical location of the poet’s body, or on the political system under which the publisher functions, but on the linguistic and literary value of the poems.
- Robert Zend, "Labels," Beyond Labels (Toronto: Hounslow Press, 1982), p. 7 

The pseudo-poet uses the medium of poetry to speak;
The true poet is used as a medium through whom poetry speaks.
- Robert Zend

When I talk about myself, I talk about you too.
- Robert Zend, "First Person," Beyond Labels, p. 23

When I like someone, it means that I like myself when I am with him.
- Robert Zend, "Links in the Chain" (unpublished)

The only certain thing is uncertainty.
- Robert Zend, "Links in the Chain" (unpublished)

Shitting is the archetype of every artistic creation.
- Robert Zend, "Crumbs" (unpublished)

A misfit is a human being who tries to remain a human being despite the surrounding pressure called mankind.
- Robert Zend, "Labels," Beyond Labels (Toronto: Hounslow Press, 1982), p. 8

Here is the solution for the problems of the world: We have to learn to play. With worlds, with ideas, with people, with life, with our selves. [...] This is the solution. This is the salvation.
- Robert Zend, "The Solution," The Three Roberts on Childhood ((St. Catharines, Moonstone Press, 1985), p. 50

The World is God's laughter at His joke, the World. 
Laugh, and you shall be divine.
- Robert Zend, "Links in the Chain" (unpublished)

In wakefulness we react to events with emotions; in dreams we react to emotions with events.
​- Robert Zend

Happiness is when the toothache stops.
- Robert Zend

Freedom is everybody's homeland.
- Robert Zend, in a letter to Canadian writer Pierre Berton, Toronto, 12 November 1959, Zend Fonds, box 26.

There are two kinds of freedom: not to serve others, and not to be served by others.
- Robert Zend, "Utopia," Beyond Labels, p. 60

Classless society is the dream of people with no class.
- Robert Zend

In Communist countries there are two classes of men; the Communists and the proletarians.
- Robert Zend

No matter how rich you are, you cannot use your two bathrooms at the same time.
​- Robert Zend

I am willing to do anything for money, even work.
- Robert Zend

I would rather have a hundred smug friends than one friend insecure; every insecure person is a potential Hitler or Stalin.
- Robert Zend

Our universe is a tree on the leaf of existence
and then there is the forest . . .
- Robert Zend, “Zoom-Out,” Beyond Labels (Toronto: Hounslow Press, 1982), p. 76.

Budapest is my homeland / Toronto is my home / In Toronto I am nostalgic for Budapest / In Budapest I am nostalgic for Toronto / Everywhere else I am nostalgic for my nostalgia.
​- Robert Zend, "In Transit," Beyond Labels, p. 136

In a country where everyone is searching for identity, I am an alien for I'm already identical,
- Robert Zend, "Labels," Beyond Labels, p. 10

"No one chooses his parents. No one chooses his children. No one chooses himself."
- Oāb, p. 218

Thinking is useless. But it's fun.
- Robert Zend, "Crumbs" (unpublished)

An editor is blessed with the talent of others.
- Robert Zend

- Robert Zend, www.24.media.tumblr.com