In the plot, people came to the land; the land loved them; they worked and
struggled and had lots of children. There was a Frenchman who talked funny
and a greenhorn from England who was a fancy-pants but when it came to the
crunch he was all courage. Those novels would make you retch.
-- Canadian novelist Robertson Davies, on the generic Canadian
novel.
Related:
What really shapes and conditions and makes us is somebody only a few
of us ever have the courage to face and that is the child you once
were, long before formal education ever got its claws into you -- that
impatient, all-demanding child who wants love and power and can't get
enough of either and who goes on raging and weeping in your spirit
till at last your eyes are closed and all the fools say, "Doesn't he
look peaceful?...
The Box, 1969 by Kendrew LaSalles
Once upon a time in the land of Hush-a-Bye,
Around about the wonderous days of yore,
They came across a sort of box, all bound with chains and
locked with locks,
And labeled, "Kindly Do Not Touch....