Gordon Donaldson > Quotes

“Americans, though apparently impressed by ghastly sentimentality and outrageous hypocrisy, are by nature much more politically cynical than Canadians. In their longer history they have had much more to be cynical about. They demand a vulgar show, enjoy it, guffaw, and forget it the next morning. When a new U.S. President takes office all bets are off and his campaign platform is dismantled and stored away. ”
― Gordon Donaldson, Eighteen Men : The Prime Ministers of Canada

“[Richard Bedford Bennett] was the richest Prime Minister and the only millionaire to hold office before Pierre Trudeau. His money obviously colored his thinking -- colored it true blue -- but he did not consider it a political drawback. No leader, he said, could serve the public properly if he was constantly looking over his shoulder at the shadow of debts. This theory is now widely accepted in the United States where it has become practically impossible for a non-millionaire to run for high office without selling pieces of himself like a prize-fighter. Yet the public still suspects a self-made millionaire like Lyndon Johnson while revering the much-richer John F. Kennedy, who got it all from his father. ”
― Gordon Donaldson, Eighteen Men : The Prime Ministers of Canada

“Other nations merely change governments as a lady changes dancing partners: Canada contrives to fall in a dead faint every time the music stops.”
― Gordon Donaldson, The Prime Ministers of Canada

“In the brief respite, James tore up part of the flooring and leaped down into an underground vault or drain. Unluckily for him, he had recently caused the egress from this chamber to be walled up because his tennis balls had sometimes been lost there.”
― Gordon Donaldson, Scottish Kings