I've been called worse things by better people.

It seems to me it would be pretty awful if Canadians came to choose political leaders not for their political ideas and actions, but because of their adherence or their devotedness to one faith or another.

What sets a canoeing expedition apart is that it purifies you more rapidly and inescapably than any other. Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on a bicycle and you remain basically a bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you are already a child of nature.

You just cannot cut a country in two any more than you can cut a human being in two. If you do, you do not have two human beings; you have a corpse.

I recognize that in some cases it's more important to have freedom and justice than to have peace.

I think the sense of exclusivity that tended to be associated with religions in past times has now disappeared. At least it has disappeared in its political and social manifestations as far as I can see.

I feel very deeply for Canada, and l believe most Canadians do.