"My life is one long curve, full of turning points"
About this Quote
The phrase "turning points" does double duty. It nods to biography (the wealthy Montreal intellectual who chose public life, the leader who stared down the October Crisis, the constitutional battles that culminated in patriation) while quietly claiming authorship over those moments. Turning points sound like choices, not accidents. Even when events corner a leader, Trudeau’s wording implies agency: he turns; history doesn’t just happen to him.
There’s also an argument about Canada embedded in the metaphor. Trudeau’s Canada isn’t a straight march toward a settled identity; it’s a country negotiating language, region, rights, and modernity in constant bend and counter-bend. The line flatters the national self-image: pragmatic, complicated, allergic to absolutes. Coming from a statesman who made high principle a brand, the subtext is sly: yes, I changed course, but only because the road itself curves. That’s how you turn political contingency into a philosophy.
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Trudeau, Pierre. (2026, January 16). My life is one long curve, full of turning points. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-life-is-one-long-curve-full-of-turning-points-110990/
Chicago Style
Trudeau, Pierre. "My life is one long curve, full of turning points." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-life-is-one-long-curve-full-of-turning-points-110990/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"My life is one long curve, full of turning points." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-life-is-one-long-curve-full-of-turning-points-110990/. Accessed 3 Feb. 2026.




