Novelists From Scotland

"You cannot, you must not, judge the past by the present; you must try to see it in its own terms and values, if you are to have any inkling of it. You may not like what you see, but do not on that account fall into the error of trying to adjust it to suit your own vision of what it ought to have been."

"I must emphasise that at private soldier level you frequently have no idea where you are, or precisely how you got there, let alone why."

"To learn the age-old lesson day by day: It is not in the bright arrival planned, But in the dreams men dream along the way, They find the Golden Road to Samarkand."

"...after careful observation of our own children and their playmates at the toddler stage, that you will see in the nursery every crime in the book except sexual assault: GBH, attempted murder, theft, blackmail, extortion, lying, fraud, false pretence, menacing, putting in fear, robbery with violence, conspiracy, mayhem - the whole Newgate Calendar is on show, and if sex and high treason are exceptions it is only because the little blighters haven't got round to them yet."

"The stark truth, of course, is that they have not abolished the death penalty at all. They have merely transferred it from the guilty to the innocent - and incidentally ensured that many more violent deaths occur."

"War is men killing each other, often at close quarters, and doing their damnedest to stay alive. And until you have done that, against a capable enemy, you don't have any idea of what it's like, honestly. Mr Spielberg may splash the screen with gore, and publicists may declare: "You are there!", but you're not. You're snug in a cinema watching a load of crap performed by actors. Hand-to-hand fighting is different, and it's no place for a woman. (It's no place for anyone, including me, but for a woman least of all.)"

"...the leaders of an independent Scotland will be only too happy to trade away that independence in return for admission to the fleshpots of Brussels for themselves and their families, goes without saying; they have the example of Westminster to copy."

"I never said, and don't believe, that all Germans are Nazis. I'm just pretty sure that they're all Germans, and that is the point."

"No doubt newspaper reports and broadcasts had encouraged us, civilian and military, to regard him [the Japanese] as an evil, misshapen, buck-toothed barbarian who looked and behaved like something sub-Stone Age; the experiences of Allied prisoners of war demonstrated that the reports had not lied and reinforced the view that the only good Jap was a dead one."

"But with today's mammoth papers the poor boobs have to write at ten times the length their subject is worth, and apart from over-padded news we have the curse of modern journalism, the proliferation of the commentary, the background exposition, the in-depth analysis, the "think-piece", all adding up to an indigestible stream of crap which no one wants to read, and no one, to judge by the mechanical repetition and weary rambling, wants to write either."

"First, I hope to see the British public resist the propaganda onslaught of the pro-Europeans, in which the broadcast media, led by the BBC, have shown themselves willing tools of the government, and vote a resounding "no" in the referendum, if and when it comes."

"One way or another, the question whether Britain remains a free nation or becomes the vassal of a totalitarian Europe will be settled soon, and those who oppose our further integration would do well to remember, and proclaim as widely and as loudly as possible, the unashamed dishonesty that has characterised the pro-European movement from the beginning. Not since Lenin and Hitler cast their obscene spells has there been a political campaign so blatantly deceitful. In 1972 we were assured it was merely a Common Market, and that no political union could be envisaged: it is now shamelessly admitted that this was untrue, that political union was the aim from the start."

"Brewing up is not merely a matter of infusing tea; making the fire comes into it, and when you have lit and maintained fires in the monsoon, you have nothing more to learn. That came later; at Meiktila it was a simple business of assembling bamboo slivers, igniting them (no small thing, with Indian “Lion” matches which invariably broke and sprayed the striker with flaming phosphorus), and bringing about a gallon of water to the boil in the section brew-tin. This was a jealously-guarded article, about a foot cubed, made by cutting a compo ration tin in two and piercing the rim for a handle of signal wire. The casting in of the tea leaves from the section box was the crucial thing, followed by the ceremonial dropping in of two broken matchsticks to attract stray leaves; remove the tin from the heat, invite the guests to scoop out the brew with their piallas [“mugs” in Urdu], and tea was served, each man adding sugar and condensed milk to taste."

"Only very young soldiers and head-cases object to boredom in war-time."

"[Regarding the 'Advance to Contact'] The simple truth about war is that if you are on the attack, you can't do a damned thing until you find your enemy, and the only way to do that is to push on, at whatever speed seems prudent, until you see or hear him, or he makes his presence known by letting fly at you."

"I’ve really noticed over the last few years how many people are turning towards eating vegetarian or vegan. […] Everyone’s realizing that these things are delicious and good for you. And I think it’s an indication of how we’re becoming more conscious of what we do to our bodies by what we put into them and what we do to the planet."

"I just don't like meat. Rotten carcasses don't feel good inside in my body. I've also seen some horrible documentaries about the hormones and things that go into meat. On a health level, meat is so scary. […] It's not just about staying away from meat, it's about keeping things in your diet that make you feel good. That's why you eat vegetarian in the first place. […] I think killing to make or eat things is horrific. It seems like there was a movement against wearing fur in fashion, but overnight it's fine again. I hate the way we pay lip service to issues like that."

"“You need a haircut, boy!” My father had only glanced at me across the kitchen table as he spoke but I had already seen in his eyes the coming storm. […] I hoped that my going to the barber's during school lunch break the next day would appease him. […] I had to get some water or I was going to choke, or worse, cry. I got up from the table and moved towards the sink. […] He threw me up on top of a workbench. He was baying now, not just shouting. You couldn't understand what he was saying but I know it had to do with my hair and my water drinking and how fucking useless and insolent and pathetic I was, but it wasn't coherent. […] Soon my head was propelled forward by his hand, the other one wielding a rusty pair of clippers that he used on the sheep we had in the field in front of our house. They were blunt and dirty and they cut my skin, but my father shaved my head with them, holding me down like an animal."

"Memory is so subjective. We all remember in a visceral, emotional way, and so even if we agree on the facts—what was said, what happened where and when—what we take away and store from a moment, what we feel about it, can vary radically."

"Had I not had the childhood I did, would these traits not be so at the forefront of my personality? Who knows? All I know is that I am the product of all the experiences I have had, good and bad, and if I am in a happy place in my life (as I truly am), then I can have no regrets about any of the combination of events and circumstances that have led me to the here and now."

"Even if my country remains at war with yours . . . remember ... I am not your enemy."

"Hell is that state where one has ceased to hope."

"Religions are many, reason is one, we are all brothers."

"Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, but only saps today of its strength."

"Life is no straight and easy corridor along which we travel free and unhampered, but a maze of passages, through which we must seek our way, lost and confused, now and again checked in a blind alley. But always, if we have faith, a door will open for us, not perhaps one that we ourselves would ever have thought of, but one that will ultimately prove good for us."

"You are extraordinarily attractive to women. And your greatest charm is that you do not realise it."

"Some temptations cannot be fought. One must close one's mind and fly from them."

"Carole Morin has enough autobiography to last her a lifetime. 90 per cent of it comprises Dead Glamorous — or at least the 90 per cent she claims to be true. The rest is obfuscation and exaggeration, designed to give her already improbable tale the sheen of some glorious myth."

"With her ‘grotesque gallery’ of relatives I wonder why she even bothers to make things up."

"Characters in novels are all fiction like the world they live in. Of course Vivien Lash has things in common with me but if she actually was me I wouldn’t have been able to invent her. And I’m not plotting to murder my husband! The closest connection between me and my characters is that we live in a city that’s recognisable as London, but it’s a version of London that came out of my head."

"Imagination is all we have in the end."

"Murder and sex are both Dionysian. Creative work is first anarchic; and then it’s structured. It’s right brain then left brain. Anarchic then controlled. To be a really good writer, you have to be able to do both. It’s hard work and it takes longer than murder or sex."

"God isn’t in the details, He’s in the structure."

"Betrayal is a cliché … Lies are so suburban. But murder is nice and clean."

"I wanted to wake up with a new name, a new hair colour, and almost the same heart."

"I like being described as "Sylvia Plath with a sense of humour." But I wouldn’t marry Ted Hughes. He’s dead for one thing."

"It’s all real. It came out of my head. Everything in there is real. Even the things invented and imagined."

"I wouldn’t want to be labelled a Woman Writer even though I’m definitely not a man. And I think Scottish Writer has some unfortunate associations. Last century when I was commissioned to write my first novel, Scottish writers were being bullied by a purple nosed publisher to write in dialect. Well my voice is authentically Scottish. I’m an educated Scottish person who escaped. My voice is as valid as a whiny cunt who lives in a council flat and doesn’t quite speak English. That doesn’t mean I have to sound like Evelyn Waugh either. I’d like to be called a Good Writer. To quote a review on Amazon, "Carole Morin is a Fucking Genius. Fact." Fucking Genius will do."

"Writing is prophesy. Don’t write anything unless you want it to come true."

"Writing is hard work. Even when you start with the raw ingredients – a mad family, a sense of humour, talent…it’s hard work. But you do get to sit around in silk pyjamas all day."

"A sinning nun, her face in a plate of cakes, caught my eye as I descended on the moving stair."

"I read Wuthering Heights when I was seven. I stole a copy from the library. We weren’t allowed books in the house because they’re ‘dirty and dusty’. My mum had a shelf of fake leather books which my dad used to hide whisky behind. I used to die of embarrassment every time a visitor tried to pick up a book and realized it was fake. The library was forbidden so it became exotic and sexy in my imagination. I was dying to get in there and read a book!"

"Writing things down is dangerous. Ink can’t be erased without leaving a mess behind."

"Books were banned from my house, my mum thought they were ‘germ traps’, so I was always sneaking into the library, hiding under a big plant; reading. I was escaping into another world as well as finding out stuff that was news to me."

"The sum of the rivals is constant."

"Lies are easy to believe in but the truth sounds false."

"God for all anyone knows could be Cary Grant."

"Irene the Slut sits on top of the television, the atmosphere of Russian vodka about her skin."

"I think about toilets a lot, and how awful it must be to be a toilet."

"I fell in love with money before I had any and it’s a myth that the best romances end in heartbreak."