The Chessmen Quotes
"Sometimes being on the side of the law's being on the wrong side."
"A man's home is his castle. And I'm a king among kings."
"No one knows the hell I have lived through. And these last weeks it has become, simply, unbearable."
"I’m exactly who I want to be. And there’s not many can say that."
"The truth is, Fin, he’s just a bloody distraction."
"You can’t keep a secret here for five minutes, Fin."
"It's a full moon the morn's night. A great night to be out and about."
"I’d be happy to, if you’d just cough up what you owe me."
"Because it’s home. And because I have a son here I didn’t know I had for nearly eighteen years."
"A loveless marriage of sixteen years had simply dissolved when the only thing which had held it together was taken away."
"We had a son. Robbie. He was barely eight years old."
"He was killed in a hit-and-run accident in Edinburgh."
"You read your Sunday newspapers on Monday, and if you forgot to buy your cigarettes on a Saturday you would have an even more miserable Sunday than usual."
"The Church dominated life then, and in many ways still does."
"I wasn’t really aware of them at first. I was too busy adapting to life away from home in the student lodgings at the Gibson Hostel in Ripley Place."
"The old cinema became the Royal British Legion Club, and still is."
"It was the presbyterian Church of Scotland and the breakaway Free Church that prevailed."
"I can laugh now, but that’s what Stornoway felt like then."
"I first met Whistler Macaskill when I left Crobost school in Ness to go into third year at the Nicolson Institute in Stornoway."
"It was 1919, the Great War had just ended, and God knows, enough of our menfolk had died already in that senseless conflict."
"You must be joking. He’s a pure fucking embarrassment. I hate him!"
"I was standing in the annexe as the band started to pack up at the end of their rehearsal, drooling like an idiot as Mairead put away her violin, and didn’t realize at first that the voice shouting ‘Hey!’ was being directed at me."
"I passed the weekend in a cloud of uncertainty and depression, unable to escape the thought of all those poor men surviving the war only to die on their own doorstep."
"For the first part of the walk, as the road wound across the moor towards the cliffs, rising all the way, we were slapping our faces and necks and waving our hands around our heads like demented puppets."
"The Church was always there, looming over everything like some great, brooding presence."
"It was a decision that changed the course of my life."
"The world around me faded into some distant dimension as I crouched down to wipe my hand across the text, and only the words and the images they conjured had any presence in my consciousness."
"The police car slewed across the promenade and turned south towards a collection of fairground attractions shuttered up for the night."
"Mairead sat in the front seat of the car, face pale and angry, like a full moon reflected on the windscreen."
"I was almost hypnotized by the blue flashing light dead ahead, without a single thought of what on earth it was I might do if and when I caught up with it."
"We stopped, I think, within six inches of the rear bumper of the police car."
"I could see Tuckfield’s frightened face, half turned to peer back at us through the dark."
"‘You’ve got some fucking nerve, boy, I’ll give you that.’"
"The wind buffeted and bullied Donald and Fin as they walked down through the dying light towards Port of Ness."
"The rain turned into a deluge then, and the two men ran from the jetty towards the boat shed at the end of the beach."
"It’s strange that history should have affected us the way it did."
"I’ve never seen such big hands on a man, fists you wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end of."
"His father was seldom sober, and when he was drunk he was unpredictable, liked to throw things around the place and bellow at the top of his voice."
"‘We’ve got rehearsal Wednesday night. You’ll be there, right?’"
"I knew my aunt wouldn’t mind. There was a spare room at the end of the upstairs hall."
"I was almost beached on the slab of rock which had broken my downward momentum, sliding over its slippery black surface, face down, feet first."
"‘You, daft bastard. Biggest bloody fish I ever pulled out of the river, and totally inedible!’"
"‘What the hell’s Jock Macrae going to say when he finds his Land Rover’s gone?’"
"‘I’ll kill him. I’ll fucking kill him!’"
"‘You will not use language like that in the presence of the children!’"
"‘There’s nothing but beer in here. Where’s the food?’"
"‘Call yourself a father? You should be ashamed of yourself.’"
"To stop would be fatal. He had to find shelter."
"A landscape so alien and primordial that it would not have been out of place on the moon."
"Sometimes in clusters, sometimes in single, solitary chunks that stood at impossible angles, casting their shadows like elongated fists."
"The blankets’ll keep it in and you’ll reheat yourself."
"God knows, you’ve no brain to speak of, but what little you have has a wee bit at its stem that regulates your internal temperature."
"A flickering yellow light filtered slowly through the gauze that fogged his consciousness."
"The lassie’s not interested in me. She thinks I’m a . . . well, she thinks I’m weird."
"Fin closed his eyes, and for the first time since consciousness had returned, felt his shivering start to subside just a little."
"The long summer of drought was well and truly over."
"We intellectuals ought to stick together."
"I can’t afford for things to get personal in a place like this."
"I would never have believed that breaking up with Mairead could be this painful."
"The approaching winter was making its presence felt for the first time."
"She told me you were a pure fucking embarrassment. Her words. But she also said she loved you."
"The truth was I didn’t ever want it to end."
"I’d have loved to feel the weight of those Jacobite swords in my hand, Fin."
"Stay away from me, Fin. Just stay away. All right?"
"I’m glad you’re back. I was going over to my mother’s. You can look after the baby now."
"Whistler’s big pale face, with its smears of black and silver whiskers, flickered too, like a light bulb at the end of its life."
"You’ve a nasty bang on the head, though."
"He never did. No matter how many times he looked, he couldn’t find that cave again."
"I laughed, then. ‘And I’ve spent quite a long time in these parts searching for the cave of swords.’"
"He pushed out his lower jaw and cocked his head to one side. ‘All good things come to an end.’"
"Only when the numbness had gone would the full realization of all that had happened visit its pain upon him."
"There’d been some kind of a fight, George."
"I knelt beside him to feel for a pulse in his neck, and at that point he was still alive."
"I think you know me better than that, George."
"Life just didn’t stop, even although Robbie was no longer a part of it."
"No matter whether he was happy or depressed he had to tell you why."
"They had me, Fin. Hook, line and fucking sinker."
"It was a great feeling, Fin, landing on the beach like that."
"I didn’t murder Jimbo! It was an accident."
"I suppose I should start at the beginning."
"They lied. They never told me there was a body in the plane."
"And I think I can show you who killed Whistler."
"I love that girl with my life, Fin. I see her mother in her every time I look at her."
"For God’s sake, Kenny. You were threatening to take his daughter away from him. Couldn’t you imagine how he would take it?"
"He came at me like a maniac, Fin. I never expected that. Jesus Christ, I never meant to kill him."
"The scream that reverberated around the cave turned Fin’s blood to ice."
"We elect representatives to make the law on our behalf, and we employ policemen to enforce it. And when they’re not around to do that for us, sometimes we have to do it ourselves."
"He among you who is without sin, let him cast the first stone."
"Your God will judge you, Donald. And if He's half the God you think He is, then He probably helped you pull the trigger."
"I think God just delivered His own verdict, Fin. Looks like I'm going to have a lot to answer for."