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Quotes by Scottish Authors
"The new contract between writers and readers is one I'm prepared to sign up to. I've met some fascinating people at events and online. Down with the isolation of writers I say! And long live Twitter."
"Books exist for me not as physical entities with pages and binding, but in the province of my mind."
"One of my greatest difficulties in consenting to think of religion was that I thought I should have to give up my beautiful thoughts and my love for the things God has made. But I find that the happiness springing from all things not in themselves sinful is much increased by religion. God is the God of the Beautiful-Religion is the love of the Beautiful, and Heaven is the Home of the Beautiful--Nature is tenfold brighter in the Sun of Righteousness, and my love of Nature is more intense since I became a Christian--if indeed I am one. God has not given me such thoughts and forbidden me to enjoy them."
"Now I knew that life and truth were one; that life mere and pure is in itself bliss; that where being is not bliss, it is not life, but life-in-death. Every inspiration of the dark wind that blew where it listed went out a sigh of thanksgiving. At last I was! I lived, and nothing could touch my life! My darling walked beside me, and we were on our way home to see the Father!"
"There was something unbearable about the damp, dark earth closing over a coffin and the still, empty flesh that was inside. She had attended a hundred funerals, but when you really loved someone there was something too final about a burial. Something brutal."
"A genuine work of art must mean many things; the truer its art, the more things it will mean. If my drawing, on the other hand, is so far from being a work of art that it needs THIS IS A HORSE written under it, what can it matter that neither you nor your child should know what it means? It is there not so much to convey a meaning as to wake a meaning. If it do not even wake an interest, throw it aside. A meaning may be there, but it is not for you. If, again, you do not know a horse when you see it, the name written under it will not serve you much. At all events, the business of the painter is not to teach zoology."
"As no one can be just without love, so no one can truly report without understanding."
"Our understanding of God is the answer to prayer getting things from God is God's indulgence of us. When God stops giving us things He brings us into the place where we can begin to understand Him."
"Your god may be your little Christian habit - the habit of prayer or Bible reading at certain times of your day. Watch how your Father will upset your schedule if you begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolizes. We say, 'I can't do that right now; this is my time alone with God.' No, this is your time alone with your habit."
"We have to take the first step as though there were no God. It is no use to wait for God to help us, He will not: but immediately we arise we find He is there."
"I have an ambivalent relationship with Margaret Thatcher. She came to power in May 1979 - a month before my 11th birthday. I was far too young to have developed a great deal of political awareness. I remember it, though - my mother excited at the dinner table because Britain had its first female prime minister."
"I think that everyone has something that they will kill for."
"If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give."
"Tolerating a wrong attitude toward another person causes you to follow the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are."
"I have a very strong sense that we only know where we are by looking clearly at where we've come from."
"The truth Fear tells is not much better than her lies."
"Love me, beloved; Hades and DeathShall vanish away like a frosty breath;These hands, that now are at home in thine,Shall clasp thee again, if thou art still mine;And thou shalt be mine, my spirit's bride,In the ceaseless flow of eternity's tide,If the truest love thy heart can knowMeet the truest love that from mine can flow.Pray God, beloved, for thee and me,That our souls may be wedded eternally."
"Many a thief is a better man than many a clergyman, and miles nearer to the gate of the kingdom."
"Timely service like timely gifts is doubled in value."
"Our works decay and disappear but God gentlest works stay looking down on the ruins we toil to rear."
"I am a storyteller, not a historian, and it's my ambition to create something compelling - something unputdownable and riveting - that chimes with the real history but is, in fact, fiction."
"I find it inspiring to actively choose which traditions to celebrate and also come up with new ideas for traditions of my own."
"The life of faith is not a life of mounting up with wings, but a life of walking and not fainting."
"She picked up the stout and took a sip. It slid down her throat like silk."
"I'm very aware we are the first generation ever to have such incredible opportunities to express ourselves publicly to a worldwide audience."
"He noticed that he felt calmer now she was here, still in that grey dress with her dowdy hat, the air around her redolent with orchid oil. Perhaps all women in England had this effect. Perhaps they all smelled of flowers and exuded a calm and measured purpose. He couldn't remember."
"I am torn between the freedom of this adventure and the benefits of civilization despite its constraints."
"Parisians were not easy to engage in conversation. Perhaps that was why the Resistance had been so successful."
"I care about a lot of issues. I care about libraries, I care about healthcare, I care about homelessness and unemployment. I care about net neutrality and the steady erosion of our liberties both online and off. I care about the rich/poor divide and the rise of corporate business."
"I believe you to be strictly honorable.'He thoughtfully emptied his cup. 'I wish I could add you were intelligent,' he went on, knocking on his head with his knuckles."
"There is an idea abroad among moral people that they should make their neighbors good. One person I have to make good: Myself. But my duty to my neighbor is much more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make him happy if I may."
"Writers are, as a profession, nothing if not eccentric."
"Paul was devoted to a Person, not a cause."
"No one's book is perfect."
"There is only one difference between a long life and a good dinner: that, in the dinner, the sweets come last."
"The whole point of getting things done is knowing what to leave undone."
"The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of principles to be obeyed apart from identification with Jesus Christ. The Sermon on the Mount is a statement of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is getting his way with us."
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