When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if I had any firearms with me. I said, ‚Well, what do you need?‘

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

I don’t think we need more gun control laws.

Before the Civil War, Canada was at the top of the underground railroad. If you made it into Canada, you were safe unless someone came and hauled you back. That was also true during the Vietnam War for draft resisters.

Traditions are a common part of our lives. They can be good, and not all traditions are wrong, but sometimes they can take the joy out of life.

Most Americans think there’s already universal background checks. They don’t understand why there wouldn’t be a background check to purchase a weapon.

According to Ethiopian custom, parents wait to name a baby because children often die in the first weeks of life.

Guns are bad, I tell you.

I grew up in the north woods of Canada. You had to know certain things about survival. Wilderness survival courses weren’t very formalized when I was growing up, but I was taught certain things about what to do if I got lost in the woods.

Canada is a balloon-puncturing country. You are not really allowed to be an icon unless you also make an idiot of yourself.

Canada is rich in hydrocarbons and other natural resources… India’s requirements and Canada’s surplus are a perfect match.

Canada was built on dead beavers.

The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia.

The fact that over 50 per cent of the residents of Toronto are not from Canada, that is always a good thing, creatively, and for food especially. That is easily a city’s biggest strength, and it is Toronto’s unique strength.

The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.

I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why, then, do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier?

Tradition is the illusion of permanence.

In Japan, the writers have made up a literary community, a circle, a society. I think 90 percent of Japan’s writers live in Tokyo. Naturally, they make a community. There are groups and customs, and so they are tied up in a way.

‚Royal Beatings‘ was my first story, and it was published in 1977. But I sent all my early stories to ‚The New Yorker‘ in the 1950s, and then I stopped sending for a long time and sent only to magazines in Canada. ‚The New Yorker‘ sent me nice notes, though – penciled, informal messages. They never signed them. They weren’t terribly encouraging.

Let’s be honest. Canada wasn’t ever cool.

Cultures, for better or worse, are very stable.

My upbringing in Canada made me the person I am. I will always be proud to be a Canadian.

Every country is like a particular type of person. America is like a belligerent, adolescent boy; Canada is like an intelligent, 35-year-old woman. Australia is like Jack Nicholson. It comes right up to you and laughs very hard in your face in a highly threatening and engaging manner.