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Quotes by Scottish Authors
"Do you really suppose God cares whether a man comes to good or ill?""If He did not, He could not be good himself...""...Then He can't be so hard on us as the parsons say, even in the after-life?""He will give absolute justice, which is the only good thing. He will spare nothing to bring His children back to himself, their sole well-being, whether He achieve it here--or there."
"Never pupil was more humble, never pupil more obedient; thinking nothing of himself or of anything he had done or could do, his path was open to the swiftest and highest growth. It matters little where a man may be at this moment; the point is whether he is growing. The next point will be, whether he is growing at the ratio given him. The key to the whole thing is _obedience_, and nothing else."
"In a heartbeat, he understands why religions are born on the sands " there is nothing here for a man but his own mind."
"A careful inspection showed them that, even if they succeeded in righting it by themselves, the cart would travel no longer. The axles were in a hopeless state, and the missing wheel was shattered into pieces."
"As the lower parts of the Japanese houses and shops are open both before and behind, I had peeps of these pretty little gardens as I passed along the streets; and wherever I observed one better than the rest I did not fail to pay it a visit."
"A paucity of material can open up just as many possibilities."
"Our business is communication oftentimes through the medium of stories but our capacity has a far greater scope - to entertain certainly, but also to stimulate debate, to mark up changes and differences and that way, to maybe, just now and then, to change the world."
"And when did mere preaching do any good? Put something in the place of these things. Fill the vacuum of the mind."
"All that political stuff Delano was doing. Me, I've gone off the top, into total fantasy."
"A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker."
"The necessary unlikeness between the creator and the created holds within it the equally necessary likeness of the thing made to him who makes it, and so of the work of the made to the work of the maker... The imagination of man is made in the image of the imagination of God."
"It is in vain that we would circumscribe the power of one half of our race, and that half by far the most important and influential."
"As long as a film stays unmade, the book is entirely yours, it belongs to the writer. As soon as you make it into a film, suddenly more people see it than have ever read the book."
"The dead keep their secrets, and in a while we shall be as wise as they - and as taciturn."
"But the best definition of it is to say that heaven is that state where we will always be with Jesus, and where nothing will separate us from Him any more."
"I've already felt that I want to direct. Being an executive producer is like the best job in the world because you make all these executive decisions and then you leave the money to other people. You don't have to be on set and counting beans."
"Many a man thinks he is patient when, in reality, he is indifferent."
"A Dandy is a clothes-wearing Man, a Man whose trade, office and existence consists in the wearing of clothes."
"My original opinion still stands. I don't think he should have put it out."
"When George asked me to be the prequels, it was the same kind of meeting - it was very short and to the point. It was nice to see him after a long time, and we met in a hotel room."
"In the last fifty years science has advanced more than in the 2,000 previous years and given mankind greater powers over the forces of nature than the ancients ascribed to their gods."
"Holiness, not happiness, is the chief end of man."
"A true writer is someone the gods have called to the task."
"The dearest friend on earth is a mere shadow compared to Jesus Christ."
"Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among men and things, and among troubles, and difficulties, and obstacles."
"But when, in the first setting out, he takes it for granted without proof, that distinctions found in the structure of all languages, have no foundation in nature; this surely is too fastidious a way of treating the common sense of mankind."
"Men often act knowingly against their interest."
"No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad."
"I spend so much time on the screen when I am writing, the last thing you want to do is spend more time on the Internet looking at a screen. That's what I hate about all this technology."
"The accumulation of numbers always augments in some measure moral corruptions, and the consequences to health of the various vices incident thereto, are well known."
"There's all this stuff that is happening in Edinburgh now, it's a sad attempt to create an Edinburgh society, similar to a London society, a highbrow literature celebrity society."
"I know no subject more elevating, more amazing, more ready to the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment than the works of nature. Where can we meet such variety, such beauty, such magnificence?"
"I tend to read more nonfiction, really, because when I'm writing I don't like to read other fiction."
"I am blind to the very things that make for our own peace."
"My parents used to take me to the pet department and tell me it was a zoo."
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