James Robertson Quotations

It might be tough, but my dad used to say, tough times don't last — tough people do.

There is something hugely civilised about allowing long pauses in a conversation. Very few people can stand that kind of silence.

The wide world was changing, and she wanted a different place in it. Not just wanted, but felt she deserved. If the world didn't owe her a living, as her mother repeatedly warned her, it owed her a break. She had a strong sense that a better, more exciting, more rewarding life than that which had been the lot of her parents and grandparents was hers by right. In this she was guilty of nothing more serious than the arrogance of youth, from which every generation suffers and by which it distinguishes itself from the preceding one.

[M]ost people go through life a wee bit disappointed in themselves. I think we all keep a memory of a moment when we missed someone or something, when we could have gone down another path, a happier or better or just a different path. Just because they're in the past doesn't mean you can't treasure the possibilities ... maybe we put down a marker for another time. And now's the time. Now we can do whatever we want to do.

On the clarity of your ideas depends the scope of your success in any endeavor.

Trust the story ... the storyteller may dissemble and deceive, the story can't: the story can only ever be itself.

The subpoena served on Mr. Hubbell was the quintessential fishing expedition, ... The independent counsel freely admits that he was not investigating tax-related charges when he issued it.

I tried to pull the guy out because the truck was on fire underneath. I broke the door down over on the driver's side. It was just too big and too much pinned in, I couldn't get him out.

These people have gone through so much, ... They need to rest, and they need to recuperate.

When we're in the story, when we're part of it, we can't know the outcome. It's only later that we think we can see what the story was. But do we ever really know? And does anybody else, perhaps, coming along a little later, does anybody else really care? ... History is written by the survivors, but what is that history? That's the point I was trying to make just now. We don't know what the story is when we're in it, and even after we tell it we're not sure. Because the story doesn't end.