1. 1. Canadians are fond of a good disaster, especially if it has ice, water, or snow in it. You thought the national flag was about a leaf, didn't you? Look harder. It's where someone got axed in the snow. ~Margaret Atwood
2. 2. And that prairie continues to live in our hearts Its much more than memories that tell us apart Its the wind! Its the sun! Its the cold! Its the snow! Only things that we kids from the prairie will know. ~Excerpt from Bouchards Prairie Born
3. 3. Patricks gift [to Nicholas], the arrow into the past, shows [Nicholas] the wealth in himself, how he has been sewn into history. Now he will begin to tell stories. He is a tentative man, even with his family. That night in bed shyly he tells his wife the story of the nun. ~Excerpt from In the Skin of a Lion
4. 4. Look at that sea, girls--all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn't enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds. ~Excerpt from Montgomerys Anne of Avonlea
5. 5. Obasan . . . does not dance to the multicultural pipers tune or respond to the racists slur. She remains in a silent territory, defined by her serving hands. ~Excerpt from Joy Kogawas Obasan
6. 6. "There are some very good reasons why the novel has come to be so important to the Canadian tradition. It is a study of the failed artistic imagination, and of an eroding puritanism; it is also ... a good example of Fryes concept of the garrison mentality, in its exploration of the peculiarities of the Canadian experience of nature and its relation to civilization ~Paul Denham
7. 7. While the hardware of civilization - iron pots, blankets, guns - was welcomed by Native people, the software of Protestantism and Catholicism - original sin, universal damnation, atonement, and subligation - was not, and Europeans were perplexed, offended, and incensed that Native peoples had the temerity to take their goods and return their gods. ~Excerpt from Kings The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America
8. 8. Munros narratives are usually structured with contrasting views such as the difference between rural and urban cultures in Canada. She also likes to set her stories in small town Ontario to show familiar things that people can connect to.
9. 9. To move to a new place -- that's the greatest excitement. For a while you believe you carry nothing with you -- all is canceled from before, or cauterized, and you begin again and nothing will go wrong this time. ~Excerpt from Laurences The Stone Angel
10. 10. A Qallupilluq is an imaginary Inuit creatureand grabs children when they come near the iceInuit traditionally spend a lot of time near the ice so Qallupilluit were invented to keep small children away from dangerous crevices. ~Excerpt from Munschs A Promise is a Promise