Canada Quotes

“While the big government culture-identity program that I’ve called the Next Great Nation movement of 1967–1976 was abandoned, it doesn’t mean that it failed completely.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“...the strength of a democracy is not how well we agree but how well we disagree.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“Me on Halloween. I went into a supermarket thinking that I wouldn’t be recognized in such elaborate makeup. A young lady approached me and said, “You are him, right?” I thought to myself, “How could anyone recognize me? The makeup took me three hours!” Reluctantly I said, “Yes.” The lady said, “Mister Colonel Sanders, it is an honour to meet you.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“I’m British by heritage, American by God’s grace, and Canadian by divine intervention.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“I like to think of the relationship between Canada and the United States as that of two brothers. We both share the same mother, Britain. Canada and the United States grew up in the same house, North America. The United States left home as a teenager and became a movie star. Canada decided to stay home and live with Mother.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“When I hear people complain about fame, it always sounds to me like, “Why do they pay me in gold bars? Gold bars are so heavy.” But fame is not creativity, it’s the industrial disease of creativity. Fame is a real experience, but it’s not a Canadian experience, and nothing about growing up in Canada prepares you for a public life.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“In order to get a foothold into the London alternative comedy circuit, new acts, like ourselves, had to get booked in one of the smaller venues, usually clubs above pubs, on the outskirts of town. The crowds were small, typically about ninety people.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“By June, if you’re a Leafs fan, the season is over. Truthfully it is usually over by December. Every year, the Leafs have a great team on paper, but, unfortunately hockey is played on ice.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“The song of the Canadian dialect is referred to, by linguists, as the Canadian rise. In the Canadian accent, there is a tonal rise at the end of each sentence, until the last sentence, which returns to the Canadian monotone. The rise at the end of the sentence is an indication that the speaker intends to continue. The end of the final sentence has no rise, which tells the listener, “Now it’s your turn to speak” … Essentially, we Canadians have encoded, “after you”, into our speech patterns. It’s subliminal etiquette.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“Skiing was for Canadians. Tobogganing was for us immigrants.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“It’s one thing to be poor. It’s another thing to be poor and feel unsafe. One could say crime is the insult to the injury. But, it's really the extra injury to the injury.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“My dad saw hockey as almost an improvement on soccer. My British relatives would say, ‘But, Eric, football is the thinking-man’s game.’ My dad would say, ‘True. But, hockey is a fast thinking-man’s game.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“When a comedy was on in our apartment, everything was better. Somehow, even the apartment smelled better.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“Every time we’d pass a cemetery, he’d say, ‘That’s the dead center of Toronto. People are dying to get in there, mate.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“Well, if that’s me dinner, I’ve had it.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“That was one of my dad’s greatest gifts, as well as one of the greatest characteristics of the English, they find things funny quickly. My dad would say, ‘There is nothing so terrible that can’t be laughed at.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“Not everybody has to be a striver. Canada does a very good job of trying to raise the standard of living of all its citizens. I think this is admirable and appropriate. However, those poor, tortured Canadian souls who are driven to innovate and make things, don’t just have to endure the typical loneliness of genius, they also must overcome the inertia of a culture that continually asks strivers, ‘Who do you think you are?”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“Every country has certain people who are visionaries, who have the gift to make things. Often these people are called “strivers”. In America, these strivers are celebrated: Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, Steve Jobs, etc.
In Canada, we have no tradition for cultivating, protecting, and ultimately
celebrating our strivers. It’s true that much attention is given to Frederick Banting and Charles Best, the two Canadian scientists who created synthetic insulin, but that’s the exception that proves the rule. It’s almost as if Canadian schools should have a Strivers Ed. Program. This is a fundamental difference between Canada and America.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“While Canada and America did not become one country, we became like two brothers who live in the same duplex. The Canadians have the drafty top floor; the Americans have the preferred ground floor, the fun floor, so fun that they often forget that somebody is living upstairs, us.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“What was all the more alarming to me was that I had actually thought that assimilating into Britain would be a breeze for me. I’m of British heritage. Growing up, I ate English foods, listened to English music, watched English TV shows, watched English soccer (Liverpool, of course). My parents had English accents, with my dad having one of the strongest and most recognizable—the Liverpool accent. But nothing makes you feel more Canadian than moving to Britain. Even more than moving to America. We can “pass” in America. Not so in Britain.”
― Mike Myers, Canada

“In Canada, for eighteen days out of the year, if you don’t have an artificial heat source, you’ll die within forty-eight hours. Margaret Atwood and Northrop Frye said that this created, for Canadians, a “garrison mentality,” whereby the central conflict of much of our literature is man versus nature. That sort of conflict breeds cooperation more than it breeds rugged individualism. It breeds caution more than it breeds entrepreneurialism. It’s cold here. It’s so cold it can make you cry. It’s so cold you want your dad to come pick you up. Even when you’re fifty-three years old.”
― Mike Myers, Canada