Top 1200 Quotes & Sayings by Scottish Authors - Page 6

I'm ridiculously proud of my children. More so than any of my books. I suspect I wouldn't have written any of them if I hadn't been lucky enough to have this huge family.

To me, it feels like 'The Doctor' has to have a long coat, and that's something imprinted on me from childhood, because he always did. And there's something heroic in a flapping coat, but at the same time, I need to get rid of it sometimes and just be a scrawny guy in a suit that doesn't quite fit.

He who will not reason, is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.

There has been a huge advance in technology, which has improved the safety of the cars incredibly, but there are still some heavy crash impacts and in certain circumstances there is still the chance of fire today.

Of course the case of the Christian Church planted among the nations must differ, in various ways, from that of any sect forming in connection with religious awakening in a territory of professing Christianity.

Tommy Burns was a brilliant human being. One of the biggest compliments ever paid to me was that I was to Celtic supporters what Tommy was to Rangers supporters. You're not universally loved, far from it, but you are accepted.

And when you look at the Turtle's movie there is something there, definitely something there.

If you put me in a box, I'm a character actor. The thing that keeps popping up for me - it sounds really cliche - but I want to play something really physically challenging, something extremely demanding and strong.

Disco is just pop music you can dance to.

Despite the fact the studio looks out of five windows onto a picture perfect view of sky, hills and wide open spaces, I work with my blinds firmly drawn, daylight filtered through their white canvas, a painterly northern light falling through two big skylights above my table, and nothing visible outside to distract me.

I refuse to work evenings or weekends. If a script sees my character meeting for dinner, I put a line through the words and make them meet for lunch.

I've been a 'Doctor Who' fan since I was a wee girl.

But I don't pay much attention to outside influences. People can say what they want. I always try to focus on my own environment.

The breadth of the potential readership is also a factor.

People who know, know. The others, it really doesn't matter.

But what are friends? What is a husband, even, compared with one's Mother? Of her love, one is always so sure! It is the only love that nothing - not even misconduct on our part - can take away from us.

Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.

I achieved more than anyone or myself could ever have dreamed.

In the Church of Scotland, Episcopalian, you don't have to believe in Heaven, but you definitely have to believe in Hell.

I don't pay much attention to career or what other people think. I've always been quite arrogant.

If you want to become a great chef, you have to work with great chefs. And that's exactly what I did.

There was nobody in my family who knew anything about the film industry. I'm from the west of Scotland. It's not exactly a mecca for filmmaking. I think I saw Rab C. Nesbitt in Asda once, but that was about it.

I didn't think Comfort and Joy was going to be a box-office smash.

The mistakes and unresolved difficulties of the past in mathematics have always been the opportunities of its future.

Lyrics are no more important than the music. There's no point in forcing them on people.

I love the emotional symbolism of the eternity band as a wedding band. It's like wearing the infinity sign on your finger and represents the cyclical and enduring aspect of love.

I was born and brought up in the countryside. I used to live in a sort of converted stables on the grounds of a castle, and I spent a lot of my childhood running around with a pretend sword pretending to be Robert the Bruce.

In the business I meet some beautiful women, but to be honest, 80 per cent of them are raving lunatics and are to be avoided. It's just insecurity; actors are generally quite insecure. I wouldn't date, or I've never had a fling with an actress, and I'd quite like to keep it that way.

I do find the sight of small children eating very moving. Watch the way their tiny fingers clamp the cutlery. The exaggeratedly precise way they move cups or glasses to their lips.

Liverpool will always be the place I look back in terms of the place where I enjoyed playing, it was just unique.

It's a cliche, but John Lennon is my hero. He was so rebellious, so outspoken and so publicly opinionated, and I'm someone who's so private. I suppose you admire people who have the qualities you wish you had.

Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds. I may be given credit for having blazed the trail, but when I look at the subsequent developments I feel the credit is due to others rather than to myself.

If you break things down to goodies and baddies, the baddies are always a bit more alluring in fiction, and that's true from a narrative point of view. But I wanted to write a novel about real life, and real life is a bit more nuanced than that.

It's never the wrong time to call on Toad. Early or late he's always the same fellow. Always good-tempered, always glad to see you, always sorry when you go!

Because they're my stories, they're my version of events of the past three years. But I really hope people can hear their own stories within the songs and they can become our version of events.

There is a measure needing courage to adopt and enforce it, which I believe to be of virtue sufficient to redeem the nation in this its darkest hour: one only; I know of no other to which we may rationally trust for relief from impending dangers without and within.

Hobbits are a lot like Scots. It's all about nature and enjoying their land, which is a very Scottish thing.

And the second question, can poetry be taught? I didn't think so.

My personal conviction is that science is concerned wholly with truth, not with ethics.

For a long time, it was all about chart position. 'If my record doesn't come in at No. 1, I'm a failure.' I cared too much about what people thought of me, and that was symptomatic of the trauma from my childhood.

I like the energy of doing things fast. We shot 'Starred Up' in just four weeks, and we edited it in four weeks.

The other was the best recovered in his condition; and being now pretty well, was appointed nurse to the rest of the sick. Next to oranges, I thought the cyder had the best effects.

I know there's a big bad world out there, but I rarely come across it.

I thought, well I can do that. I couldn't be bothered writing a book review, because I'd have to read the book, I haven't got time to read a whole book for a fifty dollar write-up.

Auditioning for 'Philomena' was such a traumatic experience because I had three callbacks, and I was absolutely positive that I was just an option.

I've had a lot of success; I've had failures, so I learn from the failure.

I tell the players that the bus is moving. This club has to progress. And the bus wouldn't wait for them. I tell them to get on board.

There is nothing like a challenge to bring out the best in man.

You cannot push any one up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little himself.

Its visits, like those of angels, short, and far between.

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

I've never felt like a pop star - this is a nine-to-five sort of gig. It comes from working in the factories, that world. You don't forget it.

The Lord is greater than all: I have said enough.

'Downton Abbey' about upper-class posh people: of course it is.

What I find in terms of the small success that I've had, with no backing, just doing it off my own back is the way I wanted to do it - I wanted to prove that you can do it on your own.

The cosmetic industry really took off in the 1950s.

I take each job on its merits. If a job's good, and it's worth doing for the reasons you want to do it, then I make that decision at the time.

That's all I ever wanted - to go out as myself and have the success or failure fall on me.

It is impossible to repent of love. The sin of love does not exist.

At West Brom I felt very left out, not part of the team.