Love Over Scotland Quotes
"They just felt a vague, inexpressible regret that he existed."
"Boys like that could look – and be – vacuous."
"The discussion, which could have been so passionate, had never risen above the bland."
"She had not foreseen these dry sessions with Dr Fantouse and the arid wastes of Croce."
"I’m not sure that the essence of art is its ability to represent."
"A woman with a husband would not come to stay for six months in a friend’s flat and not bring the husband with her."
"People who need gurus are really searching for something else altogether, don’t you think? Fundamentally insecure people. Looking for father."
"We are enlarged by the love of others; we are diminished by their dislike."
"One did not have to see every member of the opposite sex in a sexual light; quite the opposite, in fact."
"The human face was so transparent, she thought, so revealing of the feelings below."
"I was just so happy, I shouted out Spottiswoode, I suppose."
"Why do we utter words that don’t mean anything?"
"A lot of the things we do are superstitious."
"I think you begin to forget things when you’re forty."
"I know the difference between the truth and …"
"I’ve never felt the desire to punish anybody."
"I’ve never felt any pleasure in the discomfort of others."
"We must not fight in these times of darkness."
"The relationship between you and X is no longer in existence."
"Most girls confronted with an approach from Wolf would consider themselves blessed; and here she was spitting in the face of her luck."
"One did not trespass on the property of another unless one was prepared for conflict."
"The requests of those in need often came at the worst possible time."
"It’s odd, isn’t it, how one little incident, one conversation, one experience, one thing you see or hear, can change everything?"
"That’s the charming thing about the Far East. I gather that in Europe these days one has run out of boys."
"Let’s not have a sniffle, boys, let’s have a jolly good cry, for always remember the longer you live, the sooner you jolly well die …"
"There’s never much food in there, but you can help yourself to what there is. Feel free."
"We must love one another, whatever our condition in life, canine or otherwise, and that this love is a matter of joy, a privilege."
"Intelligent men have been walking daily here for ten or twenty years without a rag of business or a shilling of reward …"
"There was no reason why Matthew could not find somebody. He was presentable enough, quite good-looking in fact when viewed from a certain angle."
"And it’s significant – isn’t it? – that he then wrote all those novels about that ridiculous Jack Aubrey sailing off with Dr Maturin, or whatever he was called."
"Writers are usually very bad at real life and feel that they have to create imaginary lives to make up for it."
"She spoils things, he thought. All she ever does is spoil things."
"I don’t think it’s really what I want to do."
"Always put your door at the corner of the room."
"Pole dancers. Not every day, but maybe once or twice a week."
"Always talking about orchids? Even the vulgar people?"
"But it’s not as if Choo is involved in anything too serious."
"But at the same time, it irritated her to know that he wore Macgregor undershorts."
"Wisdom, I suppose, is seeing this and acting upon it before it is too late."
"The vitality, that spark, which makes for life, is simply not there."
"We believed that the state would protect us... but the truth of the matter was that the authorities could set right only a tiny part of the injustice and wrong that was done to the weak."
"He only wanted to do good. He was not a selfish man."
"This old physiognomy is a typical Edinburgh one."
"Tolerance is just an excuse for letting everything go."
"There are good men and women who believe passionately in the public good from very different perspectives."
"We make such mistakes all the time, all through our lives."
"It is possible to love one’s fellow man in a number of ways, and socialism does not have the monopoly on justice and concern."
"Gracious acceptance is an art – an art which most of us never bother to cultivate."
"It's very easy, isn't it? To increase the total sum of human happiness."
"Old maps had personified winds, gusty figures from whose bulging cheeks trade winds would blow."
"There’s a terrible shallowness to bad behaviour."
"It’s very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better."
"Everything about our world was becoming so superficial."
"Candour is so attractive because we are so accustomed to obfuscation and deceit."
"Science has made such things mundane, but love – that, at least, remains a mystery."
"Why it is, and how it comes about that love's transforming breath, should blow its healing way across our lives."
"Art reveals the unconscious. Of course you do," said Antonia. "There’s nothing new in that."