Scotland Quotes

“I’ll be spanked by all the men of Scotland before all me mates are wiped out and no one pays for it.”
― Kevin Hearne, Hunted

“I’m taking it all in and I’m thinking about magic. Not the fairy tale kind of magic or the witchcraft you’d learn at Hogwarts, but the magic that we, as humans, typically tend to overlook. Because it’s everywhere. It exists in everything. It exists in books and in castles, in forests and in mountains. It guards secrets and guides spirits and reassures time and time again that there is more to our existence than we could ever hope to know.”
― Jacqueline E. Smith, Trashy Romance Novel

“Edinburgh seduces with her ancient buildings. She pours alcohol or food down the throats of anyone passing, dangles her trinkets, leaves pockets bare. She's a pickpocket. The best kind of thief, one you think of - most fondly.”
― Jenni Fagan, Luckenbooth

“The long warm light that came just before the night shimmered like water. As fall approached, the sounds of bellowing red stags punctuated the woods, fierce as bears. The leaves were not yet changing, but there was something substantial and weighty to them, a fullness that could be heard when the breeze lifted them. Summer was building, building, until it had to collapse into fall, and the effort was breathtaking to watch.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Bravely

“God, can you imagine what discovering the Loch Ness Monster would do to Luke's ego?”
― Jacqueline E. Smith, Lost Souls

“Okay, he’s hinting at something. I may not know a lot about men, but I do know something about dialogue. It’s the only thing my editors say I’m really good at. Because it’s fairly obvious I don’t excel at grammar. Or plausible storylines.”
― Jacqueline E. Smith, Trashy Romance Novel

“It is sometimes remarked that, whilst Scotland has become a distinctive polity since the Scottish Parliament's re-establishment, it is still regarded 'down south' as a territory and possession of the British state to which it remains beholden. This is certainly true in the field of defence where the military bases, weaponry and other assets in Scotland are regarded by London, and even by Washington and NATO's other member states, as the British state's necessary territories and properties - its intrinsic entitlement - in both a physical and politico-legal sense.”
― William Walker, Scotland the Brave? Twenty Years of Change and the Future of the Nation

“Irrespective of the result of the General Election, I believe it will be possible to argue that Scotland has voted for more democratically accountable control over Scottish affairs. Scotland's inalienable right to self-determination includes the right to decide how to exercise that right. In the General Elections of October 1974, May 1979 and I believe in the forthcoming contest, and in the referendum on the Scotland Act, the Scottish people will have expressed the wish to remain in the United Kingdom, but with a substantial measure of Home Rule. Mrs. Thatcher would have no right to ignore that expression. Repeatedly stated, it would be the clear wish of the majority of the Scottish people. To deny it would be to say that of all the nations of the world today we had no national right to self-determination.”
― George Galloway, Radical Scotland, April / May 1983

“You could have lived quietly as slaves, but because you longed to be free you are with me here, and to gain that end you must be valiant, strong and undismayed.

24th June 1314, Robert de Brus
Bannockburn Battle”
― Ronald McNair Scott, Robert the Bruce: King of Scots

“He suddenly thought of the stretching vastness of the green moors he loved, of the rooty smells after the rains, the butting and frisking of new lambs, the faraway glimmer of the first star when evening fell, the song of the lark at the break of day, his mother's broth and oatcakes, the cozy of a peat fire while outside rain pummeled the thatch. Then he thought of his father's voice filling the family croft with love and warmth, and with a joy that he had often thought must be something very much like heaven.”
― Douglas Bond, Rebel's Keep

“Scotland's potential independent membership of the EEC may be important here. The tightening of our links with the Common Market could broaden our intellectual horizons to include Paris, Frankfurt and Milan, as well as Oxford and London (this would, of course, be a reforging of intellectual ties between Scotland and Continental Europe). In discovering these other traditions, we may be stimulated to rediscover our own, buried intellectualism. But without this European dimension, it may well be, Scotland will remain culturally chained to England, even if politically sovereign.”
― Ronald Turnbull, Cencrastus No. 3: Summer 1980

“As a result of the Scottish elite's surrender to English culture in the mid-eighteenth century the inarticulate Scot was subsequently found in evey 'rank' and 'order'.”
― James D. Young, The Rousing of the Scottish Working Class

“It closed me round, the blessed silence, made up of all the peaceful sounds of night; the whisper of sea on the shingle, the breeze in the bracken, the rustle of some creature in the grass, a splash from the tide's edge, and a movement among the rise and fall of the sea tangle, dark in the dark.”
― Mary Stewart

“...that famous motto that sits above Christopher Wren's tomb at Westminster Abbey... "If you seek his monument, look around you" - meaning London, 17th Century London. I think it's a motto that very much applies to the Scottish contribution to the modern World: that if you seek their monument, the Scots' monument, look around you.”
― Arthur Herman

“Although Scotland has been a conspicuous beneficiary of British exploitation of the Third World, Scotland has been more resistant to the mystique of Empire than England. The Empire first impressed the English as a confirmation of their presumed right to govern and then flattered their ego by adopting many English institutions and attitudes as models for their own development. In return the Empire colonised a small but important part of England's sense of her own identity.”
― Stephen Maxwell, Cencrastus No. 4: Winter 1980 - 1981

“The land held in common was of vast extent. In truth, the arable, the cultivated land of Scotland, the land early appropriated, and held by charter, is a narrow strip of the riverbank, or beside the sea. The inland, the upland, the moor, the mountain, were really not occupied at all for agricultural purposes, or served only to keep the poor and their cattle from starving.”
― Cosmo Innes, Lectures on Scotch Legal Antiquities

“The [Second World] war may thus have acted as a forcing-bed, bringing to somewhat speedier development what was already securely rooted in the circumstances of our nation; and in this sense it may, perhaps, be said that: "The Scottish Renaissance was conceived in the First World War and sprang into lusty life in the Second World War.”
― Hugh MacDiarmid, The New Scotland: 17 Chapters on Scottish Reconstruction

“It's just past eleven o'clock at night, so finally fully dark out, which means it's the perfect time to see the light installations in St. Andrew Square.
As they cross the tram tracks and enter the square, Susan gasps, "Will you look at that?"
The entire square is softly aglow from hundreds of spherical bulbs planted on stiff stems, like luminescent poppy seed heads. They cover every last inch of grass in the square, and the lights slowly change from white to blue, to green, and back to white, the change staggered by section, so the square seems alive with rippling bands of light, like a tiny aurora borealis come down to earth.”
― Brianne Moore, All Stirred Up

“For two weeks every August, the normally private Charlotte Square opens its gates to admit the literary masses. Huge white tents block views of the iron railings that normally keep everyone out, and picnic tables and pastel deck chairs circle the equestrian statue of Prince Albert in the middle of the lawn, inviting readers to relax with their newest signed novel. The tents fill with crowds to see every sort of author: high-flying politicos touting bestselling memoirs; writers of fantasy, chick-lit, sci-fi, young adult (and every possible combination of those). Authors and illustrators enthrall throngs of preschoolers and parents; up-and-comers present their work for appreciative and encouraging audiences. Books are signed by the hundreds and set out for sale in the inviting bookshop tents. People bask in the sunshine, when there is any, or gather in the café tent and grumble good-naturedly about the rain. They shake hands; gush "I love your work"; add to their "to be read" lists, and leave carrying new hardbacks in handy Book Festival-branded tote bags.”
― Brianne Moore, All Stirred Up

“It was the beauty of the country before them that had done it. Scotland was a place of attenuated light, of fragility, of a beauty that broke the heart.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Love in the Time of Bertie

“Once the way to America had been shown by the pioneers of 1717-18, going to America became easier for later emigrants. At times the zeal for migration became almost a mania, in the unaccountable manner of fads. the movement resembled an undulant fever, reaching its climax in those years when economic conditions pressed hardest in Ulster. There were five great waves of emigration, with a lesser flow in intervening years. An analysis of the tides of 1717-18, 1725-29, 1740-41, 1754-55, and 1771-75 provides, in effect, a chart of the economic health of northern Ireland.”
― James G. Leyburn, Scotch-Irish: A Social History

“Abbot E. Smith, an authority on the subject, estimates that 'not less than a half, nor more than two-thirds, of all white immigrants to the colonies were indentured servants or redemptioners or convicts,' and that, beginning in 1728, 'by far the greatest number of servants and redemptioners' came from Ireland. It would seem, therefore, that more than one hundred thousand Scotch-Irish came to America as indentured servants.”
― James G. Leyburn, Scotch-Irish: A Social History

“There has been some talk (but not enough) about the political and social consequences of the devolution fiasco three years ago, but none at all about the cultural consequences. At the time my friends were startled and mystified when I told them what a blow the result had been to me, not as a person but as a novelist who thought his mission was to portray the Scottish people. I could not see how any writer could portray with enthusiasm and conviction a nation that had so little faith in itself as to reject a modest degree of self-government or, to put it more accurately, to let itself be cheated by a piece of parliamentary chicanery. In Canada I could hardly get anyone to believe me when I explained the 40% condition.”
― Robin Jenkins, The Scottish Review: Arts and Environment 27

“In the brief respite, James tore up part of the flooring and leaped down into an underground vault or drain. Unluckily for him, he had recently caused the egress from this chamber to be walled up because his tennis balls had sometimes been lost there.”
― Gordon Donaldson, Scottish Kings

“These long northern summer days stretched out forever and ever, turning into a short gray night for just a few hours before rolling right into another bright day. The trees were every color of green: the warm ashes, the blue pines. Birds were everywhere. Since they'd left the castle, they'd encountered dramatic capercaillies with their high-spread tails, V-tailed kites, long-legged corncrakes, dire-faced rooks, and cheery little swallows.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Bravely

“Views across the rugged Cairngorms and the distant grey band of the North Sea respectively. The slate grey ocean sparkled silver where the sun touched it's crested waves, and they could juct make out the billowing white sails of various sailing vessels coming to and from the port of Aberdeen”
― Andrew Neil Macleod, The Stone of Destiny

“There’s too much pressure on folk nowadays to try and fully eradicate any form of sadness…”
― Kevin Bridges, The Black Dog

“Returning to Jamaica, he had the sense of re-entering a place much less likely to alter in the coming years. Year in, year out, the cane fields produced their riches, the gangs swung their way through them, slaves were brought, seasoned, used up, replaced. Planters would go on making improvements to their great houses, to methods of production, and yes, to the conditions in which their slaves lived and worked, because it was in their interest to do so. But fundamentally the structure of life and of society did not change.”
― James Robertson, Joseph Knight

“Parar l'orella al silenci és descobrir com n'arriba a ser de rar. Sempre hi ha alguna cosa que es mou (…). Aquesta mena de silenci no és una negació del so. El món s'hi queda suspès i jo a dins.”
― Nan Shepherd

“...this nation must rank among the most enlightened in the universe. Politics, religion and literature have made of Scotland something beyond compare...”
― Charles de Rémusat