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Quotes by Scottish Authors
"But who can paint like Nature? Can imagination boast, amid its gay creation, hues like hers?"
"The chance to be both artistically appreciated and commercially appreciated... That's what you hope for."
"If you strike at, imprison, or kill us, out of our prisons or graves we will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you, and perhaps, raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you! Do your worst!"
"The process of art evolving is always one which has fascinated me."
"I am willing to admit that if the agriculturists are oppressed by peculiar burdens, they ought to be relieved from them, or be allowed a fair and just protection equivalent to all such peculiar burdens."
"Shelley is truth itself and honour itself notwithstanding his out-of-the-way notions about religion."
"But I can only write what the muse allows me to write. I cannot choose, I can only do what I am given, and I feel pleased when I feel close to concrete poetry - still."
"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."
"The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish."
"I love acting and don't find it to be very hard. I recognize when I've nailed it, and I can be very proud of myself."
"You know, the Oscar I was awarded for The Untouchables is a wonderful thing, but I can honestly say that I'd rather have won the U.S. Open Golf Tournament."
"My block was due to two overlapping factors: laziness and lack of discipline."
"I wanted to be a secret agent and an astronaut, preferably at the same time."
"Practical wisdom is only to be learned in the school of experience. Precepts and instruction are useful so far as they go, but, without the discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only."
"Poor David Hume is dying fast, but with more real cheerfulness and good humor and with more real resignation to the necessary course of things, than any whining Christian ever dyed with pretended resignation to the will of God."
"It's like breathing in and out to me. It's like having a conversation with someone who isn't there. Because it has to be addressed to somebody - not a particular person, or very rarely."
"Concrete is, essentially, the color of bad weather."
"No, no I'm not, no, but I just think... when people are naked it tells you a lot about their relationships."
"And the second question, can poetry be taught? I didn't think so."
"An intense anticipation itself transforms possibility into reality; our desires being often but precursors of the things which we are capable of performing."
"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence."
"Give to us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for - because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything."
"I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress. Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the futherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering."
"Britain is not a country that is easily rocked by revolution... In Britain our institutions evolve. We are a Fabian Society writ large."
"Many a thief is a better man than many a clergyman, and miles nearer to the gate of the kingdom."
"When you're that successful, things have a momentum, and at a certain point you can't really tell whether you have created the momentum or it's creating you."
"Prayer opens the heart to God, and it is the means by which the soul, though empty, is filled by God."
"I love doing crosswords, it's so important to keep the brain going."
"I said I have no powers of invention. Well, I also have no powers of mimicry."
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