Top 10 David Gilmour Quotes: everyday wisdom from a pot-stirring writer
University of Toronto prof David Gilmour unleashed a storm of fury yesterday when his ultra-candid interview with a reporter from Random House blog Hazlitt went viral. Over the course of the interview, Gilmour man-crushed on Chekhov, tooted his own professional horn and professed a profound disinterest in female (or Canadian, or Chinese, or homosexual) authors. With the avalanche of reactions still piling up, we decided to look back at some of the controversial statements Gilmour has made on the record. Here, a round-up of the most memorable quotes from the self-professed guy’s guy.
On His Favourite Pastime “One of my great joys is not only having read Proust but having read him twice, and having listened to the audio CD twice.” [Hazlitt]
On Killing It in Life “It’s a fucking dream. You write a book about your son dropping out of school and they give you a professorship at U of T.” [National Post]
On Why Can Lit Blows
“I’m not the kind of writer who could write about some Mennonite woman in the 1930s overcoming difficulty on the prairies and becoming a better person.” [The Varsity]
And So Do Can Lit Authors “Canadian writers are so insecure that I can’t bear their company.” [National Post]
On Being an Educational Prodigy “You have to have a doctorate to teach [at U of T], but they asked if I would teach a course, and I said I would. I’m a natural teacher.” [Hazlitt]
On Understatements “I think a shortcoming, personally, is that I’m self-absorbed.” [The Varsity]
On Creative Collaboration “Writers don’t wish each other well. They wish each other death and failure.” [National Post]
On Responding to Criticism “When that review came out I went looking for him, and I thought, ‘I’m going to beat the living shit out of this guy, and I don’t give a fuck what happens—this guy is going down.’” [National Post]
On His (Non-Asian) Man-Only Stance
“When I was given this job I said I would only teach the people that I truly, truly love. Unfortunately, none of those happen to be Chinese, or women.” [Hazlitt]
On the Current Controversy: “For some reason, this seems to have struck a nerve.” [Globe and Mail]
