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c88f3fe 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. romance scotland time-travel historical-fiction Diana Gabaldon
3bbf324 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 obligation to think, and this, more than anything else, brought him a measure of peace, a salutary emptiness within...By wandering aimlessly, all places became equal and it no longer mattered where he was. On his best walks he was able to feel that he was nowhere. And this, finally was all he ever asked of things: to be nowhere. scotland Paul Auster
eec2bf5 "When he awoke it was dawn. Or something like dawn. The light was watery, dim and incomparably sad. Vast, grey, gloomy hills rose up all around them and in between the hills there was a wide expanse of black bog. Stephen had never seen a landscape so calculated to reduce the onlooker to utter despair in an instant. "This is one of your kingdoms, I suppose, sir?" he said. "My kingdoms?" exclaimed the gentleman in surprize. "Oh, no! This is Scotland!" mr-norrell thistle-down-hair jonathan-strange scotland stephen Susanna Clarke
ab06d9e "When he awoke it was dawn. Or something like dawn. The light was watery, dim and incomparably sad. Vast, grey, gloomy hills rose up all around them and in between the hills there was a wide expanse of black bog. Stephen had never seen a landscape so calculated to reduce the onlooker to utter despair in an instant. "This is one of your kingdoms, I suppose, sir?" he said. "My kingdoms?" exclaimed the gentleman in surprize. "Oh, no! This is Scotland!" -- mr-norrell thistle-down-hair jonathan-strange scotland stephen Susanna Clarke
830c53c "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 night." old-woman-nora scotland Karen Hawkins
ee0a11d 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 that make us? politics scotland Irvine Welsh
9e2df3e 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. racism scotland Irvine Welsh
486e39b "The infinitesimal seedlings became a forest of trees that grew courteously, correcting the distances between themselves as they shaped themselves to the promptings of available light and moisture, tempering the climate and the temperaments of the Scots, as the driest land became moist and the wettest land became dry, seedlings finding a mean between extremes, and the trees constructing a moderate zone for themselves even into what I would have called tundra, until I understood the fact that Aristotle taught, while walking in a botanic garden, that the middle is fittest to discern the extremes. ("Interim")" nature middle extremes scotland trees William S. Wilson
141ffff But I despised men who accepted their fate. I shaped mine twenty times and had it broken twenty times in my hands. fate despised scotland Dorothy Dunnett
d2c0bf5 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! scotland ireland Iris Murdoch
8d7a700 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. literature scotland Alexander McCall Smith
5225a9a 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 next week; last month I thought it would be never. Today, I know it is now. Each of us, I suppose has at least one person who thinks that our manifest faults are worth ignoring; I have found mine, and am content. When we are far from home we think of home; I, who am happy today, think of those in Scotland for whom such happiness might seem elusive; may such powers as listen to what is said by people like me, in olive groves like this, grant to those who want a friendship a friend, attend to the needs of those who have little, hold the hand of those who are lonely, allow Scotland, our place, our country, to sing in the language of her choosing that song she has always wanted to sing, which is of brotherhood, which is of love. friendship love scotland Alexander McCall Smith
0271d24 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. scotland Antonia Fraser
4d2f88f There's no place on earth with more of the old superstitions and magic mixed into its daily life than the Scottish Highlands. scotland scottish Diana Gabaldon
2e49600 Amelia envisaged that between York and the royal-infested Scottish Highlands there was a grimy wasteland of derelict cranes and abandoned mills and betrayed, yet still staunch, people. Oh and moorland, of course, vast tracts of brooding landscape under lowering skies, and across this heath strode brooding, lowering men intent on reaching their ancestral houses, where they were going to fling open doors and castigate orphaned yet resolute governesses. Or -- preferably -- the brooding, lowering men were on horseback, black horses with huge muscled haunches, glistening with sweat -- humor gothic-romance heath york literary-allusions scotland jane-eyre Kate Atkinson
d7666f9 "I talk to you as I talk to my own soul," he said, turning me to face him. He reached up and cupped my cheek, fingers light on my temple. "And Sassenach," he whispered, "Your face is my heart" -- highlands sassenach diana-gabaldon jamiefraser outlander scotland historical-romance Diana Gabaldon
ea33ae3 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 weakening regency--it had endured six during the past 150 years--and should give no further trouble. humour henryviii kinghenryviii maryqueenofscots scotland queen england Alison Weir
325bb9b "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 dangerously. "We have a thing in Scotland that's a cylinder too. Very thin, made of wood, with graphite in the center. We call it a pencil." Jessup hooted. "You think we don't have pencils?" "You think we don't have flashlights?" Tommy snapped. "That's just American dialect. In the English language they're called torches." Emily said mildly, "Actually we're Canadians." humor flashlight pencil scotland Susan Cooper
e0ed3d6 This Henry lived in Edinburgh, making him inaccessible and giving her something to do on the weekends -- 'Oh, just flying up to Scotland, Henry's taking me fishing,' which is the kind of thing she imagined people doing in Scotland -- she always thought of the Queen Mother, incongruous in mackintosh and waders, standing in the middle of a shallow brown river (somewhere on the outskirts of Brigadoon, no doubt) and casting a line for trout. humor queen-mother scotland royal-family satire Kate Atkinson
d99d9a2 Aye, it could', Ian added. 'It's many a time when I've walked alone on the misty moors of Scotland, the fog creeping in, the waves pounding against the shore, and then the lone, eerie call of a dead chicken. Caaa-cluck. Caaa-cluck humour scotland Terri Reid
c1349ac He has cat blood, I reflected sourly, no doubt that was how he managed to sneak up on me in the darkness. walking-at-night scotland forest Diana Gabaldon
1b670b8 Samantha imagined that in another life, she and Alison could have, indeed, been friends. Had she not been about to rob the train. romance notorious-rake highlander wild-west scotland historical-romance Kerrigan Byrne
73b75b3 "Tis best to weight the enemy more mighty than he seems." Or she, as was this particular case." highlander-romance notorious-rake train-robbery wild-west scotland Kerrigan Byrne
0606200 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 Scottish voice; that part looked out through Scottish eyes; and it was that part that now welled within her as she gazed out through the window of the descending plane and saw below her the rolling Borders hills... love-of-country scotland patriotism Alexander McCall Smith
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