A Quote by John McGinn

I think you're always fighting a losing battle when you're Scottish and I don't think that's right. I think the way that people look at Scottish football is wrong, but at the same time, we have to start proving it on the park and start showing it again.
I'm not particularly ethnically Scottish; I have one grandfather who is Scottish, although he's called Macdonald, and you don't get a lot more Scottish than that. The Scottish part of my family are from Skye, and I've always been very aware of that - always been very attracted to Scottish subject matter, I guess.
I'm my dad's kid, and I'm still, right or wrong, fighting that uphill battle, and I'm not saying that makes sense. I mean my dad didn't hire me at Fox... but it certainly gave me my start, and I think I'm always kind of fighting that.
I do feel Scottish in some way. Maybe it's to do with visiting my grandparents here every summer as a child, but I am aware of my Scottish ancestry. It's there all right, but it would be pushing it to label me a Scottish painter. Or, indeed, an anywhere painter.
I don't think of myself particularly as a Scottish director, but you are what you are because the first ten years of your life, and where you spend them, brand you. In that sense, I'll always be a Scottish director.
I do think culture is an argument, and that was part of the way I was brought up. People at a social occasion in Ireland will start shouting and arguing. When the Yeats family lived in Bedford Park, they had to go round to the neighbours to say, 'You might think we are fighting, but this is the way we talk to each other.'
I think most of the world would like to be Scottish. All the Americans who come here never look for English blood or Welsh, only for Scottish and Irish. It's understandable. The Scots effectively created the face of the modern world: the railways, the bridges, the tunnels.
I think that Scottish people, like Canadians, are often misunderstood and what I like about my Scottish friends and relatives is how quickly it can go from love to anger. It's a great dynamic.
I think the French agonise more about being French, I don't think English think about being English that much. I think the Scottish think about being Scottish and the Welsh think about being Welsh, but the English don't really care. But the French think about it all the time, it's an absolute preoccupation.
I have lots of Scottish blood and know that my family name is Scottish. At my home in the States I have a tartan crest but, unfortunately, I do a terrible Scottish accent.
For months, people have been asking my views about the Scottish independence referendum, and I've been saying, 'It's not my country; I don't live here. Much as I love Scotland, I think it would be inappropriate to express a personal opinion regarding Scottish politics'.
Scotch beef, salmon and shellfish are recognised the world over for their excellence and Scottish provenance. People recognise the Scottish brand. They associate the country with quality food and drink, and clearly other Scottish sectors, such as dairy, can benefit from that, too.
The NHS cannot be privatised if that's not the will of the Scottish people, and the Scottish health service will have the funding that's necessary if that's also the will of the Scottish people.
I just love Cape Breton fiddling! I think it's very close. They derive their music from Scottish music. Well, in Donegal we're very influenced by Scottish music as well. Independently the two areas became very alike, because they kind of changed the music a bit from Scotland and we did the same.
Shipping is so cheap that it makes more financial sense for Scottish cod to be sent 10,000 miles to China to be filleted, then sent back to Scottish shops and restaurants, than to pay Scottish filleters.
And when you start to think about death, you start to think about what's after it. And then you start hoping there is a God. For me, it's a frightening thought to go nowhere. I also can't believe that people like Stalin and Hitler are gonna go to the same place as Mother Teresa.
I've always been a bit scared to say that I'm Scottish because it's almost as if people wouldn't believe me or people wouldn't buy that from me, or people wouldn't accept it. And so now I think nobody has got the right to tell you what you are. You just are who you are.
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