Top 1200 Quotes & Sayings by Scottish Authors - Page 7

As far as I'm concerned, an audience is an audience. Whether it's an audience in Hull or the National Theatre, that's who you play to. It's not money - it's good to get some, but that's not why I do it. You do it because you have to, to tell a story.

'Lemonade' is made out of bubbling, fizzing, popping, and 'Hard' is made from metal and latex - they are sort of sculptures in this way. I synthesize all sounds except for vocals using raw waveforms and different synthesis methods as opposed to using samples.

From the age of 14 to about 20, I bombarded record companies and DJs with my demos. I was desperate to get it out there. Most of the time, I got nothing back.

I find Edinburgh a stimulating place in which to live, with it being a city of contrasts, both architecturally and socially, and each district having a definite character.

If you have men who will only come if they know there is a good road, I don't want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all.

We're well past the end of the century when time, for the first time, curved, bent, slipped, flash forwarded, and flashed back yet still kept rolling along. We know it all now, with our thoughts traveling at the speed of a tweet, our 140 characters in search of a paragraph. We're post-history. We're post-mystery.

Fear God and work hard.

I love playing 'Madame Vastra.' Although I do suffer, spending three-and-a-half hours in make-up every morning to have her lizard skin put on. I was so excited the first day when we did the make-up test, but after six hours, I was like, 'Can we finish now?'

Food scenes in movies are traditionally nightmares to shoot - you just can't fake eating, and you usually have to repeat it a lot of times to get the angles you need. It's actually quite a lot to ask of actors, and there's really nowhere to hide.

Nothing changes overnight unless you win an Oscar. You move up a little bit, but you are always a little fish - just in a slightly bigger pond.

I'll watch a bit of Formula One, and motorcycle racing. I've always had an interest in all motorsports, and I still ride bikes.

For me, comedy should have a certain amount of joy in it. It should be about attacking the powerful - the politicians, the Trumps, the blowhards - going after them. We shouldn't be attacking the vulnerable.

Peppers, garlic, hazelnuts and brazil nuts make my mouth, tongue and eyes swell and itch within minutes of eating them.

I was quite bright, but I didn't do much with it, and I thought acting was dressing up and shouting for a living - which, of course, it isn't.

It's good to go with your gut instincts in life. You just should. Even if it doesn't work out, something good will come out of it.

But I can only write what the muse allows me to write. I cannot choose, I can only do what I am given, and I feel pleased when I feel close to concrete poetry - still.

To me, a 'brand' sounds evil.

When I was young, running with a gang was a cool thing to do; that's how you get popular; that's how you get the girls.

They've got this house style which is writer driven. I heard of one person who sent his script in, and Karen Berger said there weren't enough words in it. Put some more in.

It remains an ambiton of mine to get to a major finals with Scotland.

Well, probably I was fed up with concrete poetry. There was a lot of bad concrete poetry and besides, it was confused with visual poetry which was completely different.

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.

Maybe it's the buildings, maybe it's the weather, but you can see it affects us - that Scottish gallows humour; our tendency towards bleakness, to look at things in a negative way. Those definitely come out in my writing.

You can't look into a crystal ball but what you can say is if money is put on the table and you get half your signings right then you are going to be better next time around.

According to a lot of people I am in everything and they're sick of the sight of me.

I would love to get solar panels installed to help us work towards generating our own energy supply.

He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.

Most of the meetings I get are in London, and in terms of travelling, I was getting so used to the Virgin train, I knew most of the staff by name.

At the end of the day, I got involved in all this because I enjoy driving cars and driving them as fast as possible. If I was going to be remembered for anything, I would like it to be for that.

Filmmaking is a miracle of collaboration.

When I was a teacher, teachers would come into my classroom and admire my desk on which lay nothing whatever, whereas theirs were heaped with papers and books.

We all know that any thing which retards in any way the free circulation of the sap, also prevents to a certain extent the formation of wood and leaves.

Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms.

I decided to build a studio in my house. We built it in my basement kitchen. I had the drummer up by the fish tank. I was in the toilet singing. The bass player was out by the shelves in the living room, and the guitarist was on the couch by the telly.

We're not the prettiest bunch of animals in the world.

That's the good thing about music: you can sing about people's lives in its stages and feelings. Some songs can put something in context that you couldn't. They can free your mind or can make you think or can be redeeming.

I had good parents. My mother had morals and standards and she brought us up to be good kids - some of the families around were just laws unto themselves, it was really tribal.

I assume everyone around me is older because they look more responsible.

Unless it's done superbly, as in the Japanese film Gate of Hell, color can be a very distracting element.

The Woman' came off the back of a film called 'Offspring' in which I played the same character.

If you're going out for a meal with friends, and they say they can't afford to go to such and such a place, you can't force them to afford it.

The classic, 'Romeo and Juliet,' for me, is the iconic story of young love.

Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned.

If someone said I had enough money and I could take six months off, I would run in an instant.

I do have very high customer service standards - I'd send back sushi because it's too fishy.

That's what drives me on, being frightened to fail. The past is in the past. I never think I'm safe.

Non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia can only celebrate Valentine's Day behind closed doors. Apparently, this has led to a huge black market for flowers and wrapping paper.

I get this weird, existential crisis when I'm looking through Instagram - and then I'll realize we work in entertainment. We know all the smoke and mirrors.

Society cannot continue to disable themselves through their need to categorize people or make assumptions as to another individual's abilities.

Reaching the height of 6 ft. 5 in.; I never expected to be that tall. I just shot up.

Our ancestors are totally essential to our every waking moment, although most of us don't even have the faintest idea about their lives, their trials, their hardships or challenges.

I didn't make a 147 until few years ago - I just wasn't the sort of player who went for them. But it's like buses I suppose, one comes along and then a few more follow.

To all, to each, a fair good-night, and pleasing dreams, and slumbers light.

I rather like contemporary art.

I would rather my soul broil in hell than I do you any harm.

There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.

I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.

I played in the Premier League for Blackpool and earned the right to go to a club like Liverpool.

I didn't want the headache of having a publisher reviewing everything I wrote in advance.

Pets, like their owners, tend to expand a little over the Christmas period.