There are even more galvanizing aspects to the Canadian psyche than mere reticence. There is the collective fear, at least when I was growing up, of becoming too big for our britches. To paraphrase Lorne Michaels (my countryman), it's the kind of place where they award Miss Canada to the runner-up because the prettiest already gets to be prettiest. Rather than demanding liberty, or, failing that, death, we are a country forever giving up our seats to the elderly, all the while thanking one another for not smoking.
- David Rakoff, "Extraordinary Alien," p.97 in Fraud
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