However she redefined herself, that part of one that made for the core of the self, that part that we think of as the ultimate, inner being—that was ineradicable Scottish. That part spoke with a Scott...
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.
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 weake...
We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.
Don't marry for money, you can borrow it cheaper.
The Scottish sun, shocked by having its usual cloudy underpinnings stripped away, shone feverishly, embarrassed by its nakedness.
He has cat blood, I reflected sourly, no doubt that was how he managed to sneak up on me in the darkness.
There's no place on earth with more of the old superstitions and magic mixed into its daily life than the Scottish Highlands.
Dear friends, he began, there is no timetable for happiness; it moves, I think, according to rules of its own. When I was a boy I thought I'd be happy tomorrow, as a young man I thought it would be ne...
Tommy looked blank. What's a flashlight?You don't have flashlights? Jessup said. Jeeze! A cylinder, like, with batteries inside it, and a light bulb behind glass at one end--Tommy's blue eyes glinted...
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.
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 t...
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...
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.
Love doesna always mean burning flashes o' passion. Sometimes, it's jus' the warmth o' yer hearts as they beat yer day together. ~Old Woman Nora to her three wee granddaughters on a cold winter's nigh...
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.
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.
Give me but one hour of Scotland Let me see it ere I die.
Each time he took a walk, he felt as though he were leaving himself behind, and by giving himself up to the movement of the streets, by reducing himself to a seeing eye, he was able to escape the obli...