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Quotes by Scottish Authors
"Belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain."
"We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing."
"As long as you do the best work that you can and not make it bland... because you're going down a lane that is trying to make everybody happy. You have to take an angle on these things."
"I only keep books that I like very much. Otherwise I'd throw them out."
"The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster."
"I am sure of nothing so little as my own intentions."
"Letty's first false step was here: she said to herself _I can not_, and did not. She lacked courage--a want in her case not much to be wondered at, but much to be deplored, for courage of the true sort is just as needful to the character of a woman as of a man."
"I have got the best of both worlds; growing up in Edinburgh and now living outside Glasgow."
"I wrote five issues of that and got the sack. Actually, they paid me for eight, but they changed their minds about the direction and threw three issues out the window."
"There are impertinent inquiries made; your rule is, to leave the inquirer uninformed on the matter; not, if you can help it, misinformed, but precisely as dark as he was!"
"A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge."
"The telling of any character is what they do in a different situation."
"A companion loves some agreeable qualities which a man may possess, but a friend loves the man himself."
"Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can."
"This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts."
"My father could talk about the Romany way of life and its culture. He could talk about freedom and the Scottish spirit. But that was all he could talk about. I was desperate for someone to talk to but there was just nobody there."
"It's been the most creatively liberating thing I've ever done and so I'm bringing some of that mad enthusiasm to Marvel for the next couple of years as they let me loose on some Marvel Universe titles you'll be hearing about soon."
"That's the trouble with anything which essentially has a lot of bits that are physically impossible: You're left, stuck, in the studio. And that's a shame. You're making a movie. You don't want it to stay put, you want it to be a movie - to move."
"Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man."
"Books are standing counselors and preachers, always at hand, and always disinterested; having this advantage over oral instructors that they are ready to repeat their lessons as often as we please."
"Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences."
"When I'm playing a character like Jonathan in Ripley's Game I want to be in the moment when he's feeling pain; this very ordinary person who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances."
"I had a very bad time with acid. I did that classic thing of looking in the mirror by mistake and seeing the devil. But I took it several times, because you always think that next time you might have the wonderful time that everyone else is having."
"No, sir. I make it a rule of mine: The more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask."
"In every man there is an instinctive and passionate reaction if his person or liberty is attacked."
"Escapers were the cream of the crop."
"I have tried to preserve in my relationship to the film the same closeness and intimacy that exists between a painter and his canvas."
"The trouble with referees is that they know the rules, but they do not know the game."
"Being a writer is a more difficult job than people imagine."
"I don't lose sleep over what I have done or have nightmares about it."
"If we bring not the good courage of minds covetous of truth, and truth only, prepared to hear all things, and decide upon all things, according to evidence, we should do more wisely to sit down contented in ignorance, than to bestir ourselves only to reap disappointment."
"I have no shortage of material or offers, it's just a case of what you select to do. But I think it's realistic that my chances of playing Romeo are now over."
"A drunkard is one thing, and a temperate man is quite another."
"We genuinely believe to this day that it was an honest genuine mistake and we never imagined the punishment would be eight months. The precedent dictated that it was unlikely to be that. We don't regret he played for that period."
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