Scotland Quotes

A memory, long buried, sprang up of her father warning her never to cross the stream and go into the forest."The Dragonwood," she mumbled.How could she have forgotten the Dragonwood?Her father had explained that it wasn't their land, and that dangerous animals lurked in the shadows.

We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.

The drinking dens are spilling outThere's staggering in the squareThere's lads and lasses falling aboutAnd a crackling in the airDown around the dungeon doorsThe shelters and the queuesEverybody's looking forSomebody's arms to fall intoAnd it's what it isIt's what it is nowThere's frost on the graves and the monumentsBut the taverns are warm in townPeople curse the governmentAnd shovel hot food downThe lights are out in the city hallThe castle and the keepThe moon shines down upon it allThe legless and asleepAnd it's cold on the tollgateWith the wagons creeping throughCold on the tollgateGod knows what I could do with youAnd it's what it isIt's what it is nowThe garrison sleeps in the citadelWith the ghosts and the ancient stonesHigh up on the parapetA Scottish piper stands aloneAnd high on the windThe highland drums begin to rollAnd something from the past just comesAnd stares into my soulAnd it's cold on the tollgateWith the Caledonian BluesCold on the tollgateGod knows what I could do with youAnd it's what it isIt's what it is nowWhat it isIt's what it is nowThere's a chink of light, there's a burning wickThere's a lantern in the towerWee Willie Winkie with a candlestickStill writing songs in the wee wee hoursOn Charlotte Street I takeA walking stick from my hotelThe ghost of Dirty DickIs still in search of Little NellAnd it's what it isIt's what it is nowOh what it isWhat it is now

It washed all over me and through me, into the floor and then it was gone. I never cried for my Da again after that, and God's presence has been with me ever since.” - Adien MacRae, BETWEEN

The black of the ocean waves was the color of the sorrow in my breast, a sorrow that was never far away and always visible.

You've walked the woods today. Tell me there isna something about this land that doesna take hold of you and sink into your verra soul."Her smile slowly faded. "It did. How did you know?""You were born here, Iona.You were part of this land, just as it's a part of you. You've been gone a long time, but it still remembers you. You just needed to remember it.

Hardship bred a bitter, quickfire humour and resilience to all but the most terminal of life's tragedies.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.

There was something more than a little satisfying about ripping the heart out of someone the moment before they expected to do the same to you.

Americans may say they love our accents (I have been accused of sounding 'like Princess Di') but the more thoughtful ones resent and rather dislike us as a nation and people, as friends of mine have found out by being on the edge of conversations where Americans assumed no Englishmen were listening.And it is the English, specifically, who are the targets of this. Few Americans have heard of Wales. All of them have heard of Ireland and many of them think they are Irish. Scotland gets a sort of free pass, especially since Braveheart re-established the Scots' anti-English credentials among the ignorant millions who get their history off the TV.

She remembered Fiona saying something once, there was nothing more attractive than a competent man. At the time she'd been a young girl, without true understanding, but now she agreed.

The infinitesimal seedlings became a forest of trees that grew courteously, correcting the distances between themselves as they shaped themselves to the promptings of available light and moisture, tempering the climate and the temperaments of the Scots, as the driest land became moist and the wettest land became dry, seedlings finding a mean between extremes, and the trees constructing a moderate zone for themselves even into what I would have called tundra, until I understood the fact that Aristotle taught, while walking in a botanic garden, that the middle is fittest to discern the extremes. ("Interim")

I was once a man, not a great man, not a saintly man, but a good man, and a man nonetheless.

I suppose there are some advantages to this place,' he admitted. 'I bet it's fucking raining in Stirling.

News of the death of James V on 14 December gave even further cause for rejoicing, because his heir was a week-old girl, the infant Mary, Queen of Scots. Scotland would be subject to yet another weakening regency—it had endured six during the past 150 years—and should give no further trouble.

Don't marry for money, you can borrow it cheaper.

Darnley, who, like Banquo's ghost, seemed to play a much more effective part in Scottish politics once he was dead than when he was alive.

But I do like Scotland. I like the miserable weather. I like the miserable people, the fatalism, the negativity, the violence that's always just below the surface. And I like the way you deal with religion. One century you're up to your lugs in it, the next you're trading the whole apparatus in for Sunday superstores. Praise the Lord and thrash the bairns. Ask and ye shall have the door shut in your face. Blessed are they that shop on the Sabbath, for they shall get the best bargains. Oh yes, this is a very fine country.

Ah don't hate the English. They're just wankers. We are colonised by wankers. We can't even pick a decent, vibrant, healthy culture to be colonised by. No. We're ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us?

Symbols, for me and for many, of freedom, whether it be from the prison of over-dense communities and the close confines of human relationships, from the less complex incarceration of office walls and hours, or simply freedom from the prison of adult life and an escape into the forgotten world of childhood, of the individual or the race. For I am convinced that man has suffered in his separation from the soil and from the other living creatures of the world; the evolution of his intellect has outrun his needs as an animal, and as yet he must still, for security, look long at some portion of the earth as it was before he tampered with it.

More bloodshed followed, as brother fought brother and religion battled religion in the age-old nonsense of settling whose method of worship was the holiest to our Creator, who, for all our murderous efforts, most likely despises the lot of us.

Submitted for your approval--the curious case of Colleen O’Brien and thegorgeous time traveling Scot who landed in her living room.” – Rod Serling

She was convinced the country was about to succumb to revolutionary socialism. Her own circumstances encouraged this belief: just on the edge of the really rich country set, she shared their views and opinions but lacked the financial and architechtural insulation from real or imagined political troubles. She found crushed larger cans and cigarette packets in her front garden and interpreted these as menacing signals from the Perthshire proletariat. Every flicker and dim of electric light was a portent of class war.

Funny how I keep forgetting you’re insane.” - Colleen O’Brien

The village lay in the hollow, and climbed, with very prosaic houses, the other side. Village architecture does not flourish in Scotland. The blue slates and the grey stone are sworn foes to the picturesque; and though I do not, for my own part, dislike the interior of an old-fashioned pewed and galleried church, with its little family settlements on all sides, the square box outside, with its bit of a spire like a handle to lift it by, is not an improvement to the landscape. Still, a cluster of houses on differing elevations - with scraps of garden coming in between, a hedgerow with clothes laid out to dry, the opening of a street with its rural sociability, the women at their doors, the slow waggon lumbering along - gives a centre to the landscape. It was cheerful to look at, and convenient in a hundred ways. ("The Open Door")

For 3 million you could give everyone in Scotland a shovel, and we could dig a hole so deep we could hand her over to Satan in person. (on Margaret Thatcher)

Ah sortay jist laugh whin some cats say that racism's an English thing and we're aw Jock Tamson's bairn up here . . . it's likesay pure shite man, gadges talkin through their erses.

This is no dream, Novi. Everything you are experiencing is real and until you accept that, you will not be able to go home.”“Yeah, okay. Sure. Twin queens, talking otters, Autumn Fae, houses suspended in midair. Yep, totally real. Got it.

But I despised men who accepted their fate. I shaped mine twenty times and had it broken twenty times in my hands.

It occurred to Gavin that the first thought a groom had upon spying his bride shouldn’t be to wonder whether or not she wore knickers.

there were lovely things in the world, lovely that didn't endure, and the lovelier for that... Nothing endures.

I had turned to leave and he had called after me. “Miss Maria, I kin no other woman who could be wearing men’s trousers and be dripping such as ye are and look quite so lovely. It’s a right shame your mother is marrying you off to that great sot!”I had turned to call back to him, “I doubt very much we will have to worry about that after today!

Lord, did he have the best smile. It was in turns sweet, seductive, and downright sexy. How could a man look so good without even seeming to try? Laith was charming, enticing, handsome, and fascinating.If she had to classify him, it would be sex-on-a-stick.

The writing talent of Edinburgh is textured - we have poets, novelists, non-fiction writers, dramatists and more.

Freedom is an idea that no tyrant will ever crush.

O Caledonia! stern and wild Meet nurse for a poetic child! Land of brown heath and shaggy wood Land of the mountain and the flood Land of my sires! what mortal hand Can e'er untie the filial band That knits me to thy rugged strand!

His tongue tapped his top lip as he cupped her breast in his hand. "Tis boidhche --beautiful.

Scotland can exist fully if we dream hard enough, Julie. I just can’t relate to that Scottish deep-fried-chip-on-the-shoulder. Trainspotting was wrong: it feels fucking great being Scottish. We’re becoming something, Julie. I can feel it. We’re getting dressed up.

God himself had sent me away. I was truly now among the damned.

Refusing to lean back against him, Colleen sat ramrod straight until they reached the road. “I guess I should say thank you for saving my life,” she muttered then turned and slapped Faolán hard across the face. “And that’s for you having to save it in the first place. And I’m not your woman, you big, arrogant, lying, betraying…faery loving…” She searched for the perfect insult and couldn’t find one, “…Scot.” She gave a very unladylike snort. “Happy now? That fiery enough for you?

You turn the lights on and off here and if you can’t sleep and want something to read there are books in the living room…” her voice broke off. “Wait. Can you read?”His chin took a slight tilt upward. “Aye,” Faolán replied, his voice cool, “in English, Gaelic, Latin, or French. My Welsh is a bit rusty, and I doona remember any of the Greek I was taught except for words not fit for a lady’s ears. I can also count all the way up to…” He looked down and wiggled his large bare toes, “…twenty.” – Faolán MacIntyre

Aye, it could', Ian added. 'It's many a time when I've walked alone on the misty moors of Scotland, the fog creeping in, the waves pounding against the shore, and then the lone, eerie call of a dead chicken. Caaa-cluck. Caaa-cluck

I did not choose to be a monster—a shell of a man—half-human, half-fiend. I am a tiefling. I am what I am.

Food shouldn’t be that shade of green, lass.” – Faolán MacIntyre

Iona stared at me for a long time. “You are going to leave me a widow before I have a chance to become a bride.

At the negotiations in Irvine, it became clear to me that there was no side I could stand on. The English despise me and my countrymen don’t trust me. Wallace and the others are rebelling in the name of Balliol. I cannot fight with them. It would be as much a betrayal of my oath as when I was fighting for England. I know what I must do. What I should have done months ago.’Robert felt embarrassed, about to say the words. Inside, his father’s voice berated him, but he silenced it. ‘I want you to weave my destiny,’ he finished. ‘As you did for my grandfather.’When she spoke, her voice was low. ‘And what is your destiny?’He met her eyes now, all hesitation and embarrassment gone. ‘To be King of Scotland.’A smile appeared at the corners of her mouth. It wasn’t a soft smile. It was hard and dangerous. ‘I will need something of yours,’ she said, rising.

I doona understand them," Ryder said as he stopped beside Laith. "Doona get me wrong. I love the feel of a woman's thighs around me, but to be bound to a single woman for eternity?" Ryder shuddered. "It's no' for me. Human or Fae.

The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.

Listen to the earth, Feel the fire. Allow the power to flow through ye.

You keep doing that, and you'll find yourself mated quick enough.""It's no' for me. I'm perfectly content just as I am."Ryder made a face. "Are you insane? why say something like that and temp the cosmos?"Laith watch him walk away, wondering if he had just drawn the interest of fate.

Son, it’s easy tae be guid oan a fu’ belly. It’s when a man’s goat two bites an’ wan o’ them he’ll share, ye ken whit he’s made o’. Listen. In ony country in the world, who are the only folk that ken whit it’s like tae leeve in that country? The folk at the boattom. The rest can a’ kid themselves oan. They can afford to hiv fancy ideas. We canny, son. We loass the wan idea o’ who we are, we’re deid. We’re wan anither. Tae survive, we’ll respect wan anither. When the time comes, we’ll a’ move forward thegither, or nut at all.

His mouth descended on hers in a fierce kiss.He seized, he captured.He dominated.And she loved every second of it.

Och, lass. Yer going to have to not do that.” Faolán exhaled. “Creeping up on a man is a dangerous thing, and I confess I’m jumpier than most. Yer feet are soft as a cat’s.”“I wasn’t creeping anywhere, I was going to make coffee and this is my house, I’ll creep anywhere I like,” Colleen muttered with a petulant scowl. “But I wasn’t creeping.

That's how vile i am! I live Ireland, I breathe Ireland, and Christ how I loathe it, I wish I were a bloody Scot, that's how bloody awful it is being Irish!

I stood still, vision blurring, and in that moment, I heard my heart break. It was a small, clean sound, like the snapping of a flower's stem.

An enemy is always an enemy, even when they're an ally." - Taraeth

But he'll never be fully recognised, because Scots literature these days is all about complaining and moaning and being injured in one's soul.

Doona fash, Sam.” Calybrid, spying her scowl, hurried to balm the wound. “Ye’re plenty fair.”t“Aye,” Locryn agreed.t“With eyes the color of the Alt Dubh Gorm.”t“Sure, that too.”t“Just… no one will write odes to yer breasts is all.”t“On account of ye not having any,” Locryn supplied, rather unnecessarily, in Samantha’s opinion.

A peaceful refuge in which to rediscover each other, we thought,, not realizing that, while golf and fishing are Scotland's most popular outdoor sports, gossip is the most popular indoor sport.

Edinburgh is a great big black bastard of a city where there are ghosts of all kinds.