women-authors-from-scotland

"In the gloaming, oh, my darling! When the lights are dim and low, And the quiet shadows, falling, Softly come and softly go."

"... the influence of woman — where any freedom of social intercourse is allowed between the sexes — is highly favourable to civilisation. She advances refinement and civilisation, and is, in turn, advanced by them."

"... if we take politics in the large and high sense in which it stands for patriotism and philanthropy, the assertion that an interest in it is out of place in the breast of the very gentlest of her sex, — in other words, that it is improper and unbecoming in a woman to take a deep interest in the affairs of her country and of humanity, — is made with more boldness and confidence, than regard to reason and truth."

"The grand plea for woman sharing with man all the advantages of education is, that every rational being is worthy of cultivation, for his or her own individual sake. The first object in the education of every mind ought to be its own development."

"To leave the liberty of one-half of the human race at the mercy of the convenience of the other, amounts to an annihilation of the rights of that half."

"... are puddings and pies, roasting and boiling, dusting and washing, or even the rearing and educating her children, so entirely to engross her attention, that her heart and mind can never expand beyond her own little domestic circle? Nay, if her mind never does so expand, will she be able properly to regulate the concerns even of that little circle?"

"We shall be disposed to acknowledge that woman's influence has been sufficient to obtain her justice, when it has obtained for her ... perfectly just and equal rights with the other sex. When this is the case, we shall expect to see each woman wakened up into a sense of her individual responsibilities and duties: finding herself no longer classed with children and idiots, we may reasonably expect to see her rousing herself up, and applying, with renewed energy, to all her duties ..."

"No pure and noble-minded woman can long love affectionately, and submit passively to, a vicious and dissipated, — or even to a good and virtuous tyrant, — without having her own mind greatly deteriorated."

"I have found that men, in all other ways admirable, have insisted upon flattery, upon extreme tact, upon suppression of opinion, in short, upon the sort of extreme and conscious consideration one shows to children or to persons suffering from nervous ailments."

"My mother bids me bind my hair With bands of rosy hue, Tie up my sleeves with ribbons rare, And lace my bodice blue."

"‘Who are you that so strangely woke, And raised a fine hand?’ Poverty wears a scarlet cloke In my land.‘Duchies of dreamland, emerald, rose Lie at your command?’ Poverty like a princess goes In my land.‘Wherefore the mask of silken lace Tied with a golden band?’ Poverty walks with wanton grace In my land.‘Why do you softly, richly speak Rhythm so sweetly-scanned?’ Poverty hath the Gaelic and Greek In my land.‘There’s a far-off scent about you seems Born in Samarkand.’ Poverty hath luxurious dreams In my land.‘You have wounds that like passion-flowers you hide: I cannot understand.’ Poverty hath one name with Pride In my land.‘Oh! Will you draw your last sad breath ’Mid bitter bent and sand?’ Poverty begs from none but Death In my land."

"O ye that look on Ecstasy The Dancer lone and white, Cover your charmèd eyes, for she Is Death’s own acolyte. She dances on the moonstone floors Against the jewelled peacock doors: The roses flame in her gold hair, The tired sad lids are overfair. All ye that look on Ecstasy The Dancer lone and white, Cover your dreaming eyes, lest she— (Oh! softly, strangely!)—float you through These doors all bronze and green and blue Into the Bourg of Night."

"As a dancer dancing in a shower of roses before her King (A dreamer dark, the King) Throws back her head like a wind-loved flower, and makes her cymbals ring (O’er her lit eyes they ring); As a fair white dancer strange of heart, and crown’d and shod with gold, My soul exults before the Art, the magian Art of old."

"The Rose of the World hangs high on a thorny Tree. Whoso would gather must harrow his hands and feet. But oh! It is sweet.The leaves that drop like blood from the thorny Tree Redden the roads of the earth from East to West. They lie in my breast.O Rose, O Rose of the World, bow down to me Who can cleave no more, so pierced are my hands and feet. For oh! Thou art sweet."

"We crazed for you, aspired and fell for you; Over us trod Desire, with feet of fire. Ah! the sad stories we would tell for you, Full of dark nights and sighing While—you were dying, Chrysola!Roundels and all rich rimes we rang for you; How from the plangent lyre pled our Desire! But the musicians vainly sang for you;— Through the dear music, crying That—you were dying, Chrysola!High on the golden throne love wrought for you With eyes enthrall’d of rest, tired of our best; You sat unheeding while we fought for you Glaive unto glaive replying; For—you were dying, Chrysola!Frenzied from out the jousts we came to you; ‘Can we love more, Dream-fast? Crown, then, at last.’ But love and hate were one dim flame to you; Strange things you smiled us—dying, O! You were dying, Chrysola!Great spoils of frankincense we burn’d for you, Round your death-chamber proud—then cursed aloud Christian or Pagan god that yearn’d for you, Till you were undenying.— O Dream undying, Chrysola!"

"Reform is also thinking long-term. The party wants to seize this moment of peak Tory unpopularity (few prime ministers have seen approval ratings as low as [[Rishi Sunak|[Rishi] Sunak]] has now) and use it for a realignment of politics. Its real focus is the election after the next one, when it hopes a shake-up of the two-party system could take place. Just as the SDP-Liberal Alliance split the left in the 1980s, Reform may split the right now."

"Now we sat in silence over the prawns and cheese, listening to them arguing. She was telling him The Sunday Times was investigating a tip that he had dodged a driving ban for speeding by pretending she had been at the wheel. He was telling her to keep her mouth shut. The recording finished and she switched off the machine, looking up expectantly."

"There's not enough talk of how weird neurotypicals are."

"In a sign of national disapproval, Mr. Johnson was greeted with boos and jeers at the Platinum Jubilee service on Friday. It's not that a Conservative politician being booed is rare; in fact, it's quite common. It's that such a thing is not supposed to happen to him."

"... by looking at autistic women I admired I began to realize that an autistic brain could provide an escape route from the traditional paths laid out for women."

"Some candidates describe themselves as feeling numb over the result. Others are simply angry they were put in this position – made to fight an election they thought was a bad idea. It's not just the 'big names' who have lost their seats, it's the losses in areas that have been Conservative for 100 years, such as Chichester. Then there’s Reform gains in former Tory strongholds such as Great Yarmouth. It means the recriminations are well under way."

"Autistic women have an almost childlike sense of injustice, meaning they are also often ahead of the curve in pushing feminist interests forward."

"As the owner of a little place on the Isle of Wight, I should declare an interest. Some 80 per cent of properties in my seaside village are second homes, making it difficult for local shops to survive the winter."

"... I would rather be an autistic woman than a neurotypical one. I always felt like women seem to look left and right at what other women are doing and are influenced by their peers. If I’d have been more influenced by my peers, I don’t know what I would have ended up doing."

"Nan Shepherd was a leading writer of the Scottish Literary Renaissance, an interwar modernist movement which rejected sentimental stereotypes of Scottish rural life and embraced international avant-garde aesthetics. Her writing is defined by fascination with rural communities, the realities of women's lives, and the allure and mystery of the living world."

"Light still lingered in the sky; the hills, that had been dissolved in its splendour, like floating shapes of light themselves, grew dark again."

"The Cairngorm Mountains are a mass of granite thrust up through the schists and gneiss that form the lower surrounding hills, planed down by the ice cap, and split, shattered and scooped by frost, glaciers, and the strength of running water. Their physiognomy is in the geography books—so many square miles of area, so many lochs, so many summits of over 4000 feet—but this is a pallid simulacrum of their reality, which, like every reality that matters to human beings, is a reality of the mind."

"Her last book, The Living Mountain, was written in the years towards the end and after the second war, but it was not published until 1977. This volume celebrated the experience of climbing and hill-walking in the Cairngorms, one of Nan Shepherd’s life-long pleasures, and here, as in her poems, it is possible to identify the passionately metaphysical strain that underlies her creative prose and her sense of the nature of existence itself."

"She had given love and received only adoration: and love is so much bigger a thing than adoration — more complex and terrible. At its absolute moments it holds resolved within itself all impulses and inconsistencies, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, the spirit's agonizing."

"You must master the vices. You know that if a thing is worth doing it's worth doing well. If, however, a thing is not worth doing then it's worth doing fabulously, amazingly, with grace, style and panache.”"

"I found that being pregnant was different from how I thought it would be…It shares a lot in common with writing in a way. You have an imaginary version of yourself pregnant, and an imaginary baby, an imaginary idea of yourself as a mother…"

"Even though there’s a massive amount of people of colour now living in Scotland…this country is 30 or 40 years behind any other English city in terms of racial attitudes and integration. There’s no proper acknowledgement of the slave trade and how many Scottish cities were founded on money from that. Our children are just not taught that history."

"For me it was a lot of fun. It was exciting. There were lots of people who came to stay from different parts of the world. You would come down in the morning and there would be different bodies on the floor or on the sofa. There would be Party socials in the house where people would sing songs and recite poems. It was a very social upbringing…"

"I like the idea that stories are active, that if you stepped on them they would become alive, like plants, and that the same memory can grow new shoots and flowers, and can change over the course of people’s lives…"

"Sae smoor yersel', my man, Pit oot yer licht, Grey hair that's tow To a lassie's lowe Is an unco sicht."

"Laughter and gibes and scorn they brave for her: their pounds, their silver, and their pence they give; their time, their talent and their youth for her that she may live."

"They agonise in sordid tenements, with children stabled worse than sheep or kye. O, how can grace or peace or health abide such poverty?"

"This man set the flame of his native genius under the cumbering whin of the untilled field; Lit a fire in the Mearns to illumine Scotland, clearing the sullen soil for a richer yield."

"I mind o' the Ponnage Pule On a shinin' mornin', The saumon fishers Nettin' the bonny brutes — I' the slithery dark o' the boddom O' Charon's Coble Ae day I'll faddom my doots."

"Up the Noran Water In by Inglismaddy, Annie's got a bairnie That hasna got a daddy. Some say it's Tammas's An' some say it's Chay's; An' naebody expec'it it, Wi' Annie's quiet ways."

"I mind o' the Ponnage Pool, The reid brae risin', Morphie Lade, An' the saumon that louped the dam, A tree i' Martin's Den Wi' names carved on it; But I ken na wha I am."

"Bide the storm ye canna hinder, Mindin’ through the strife, Hoo the luntin’ lowe o’ beauty Lichts the grey o’ life."

"Under an arch o’ bramble Saftly she goes, Dark broon een like velvet, Cheeks like the rose."

"But where this passionate self will go, God knows, Who knows whence the lightning comes, and whither it goes."

"While I am not teetotal, a drunk woman I find revolting and Burns orgies detestable."

"Criticism in Scotland, of books as well as plays, is often bedevilled because we all know each other too well. The clique can cast its chill over its rivals; the claque delude with false praise."

"The man that mates wi’ Poverty An’ clasps her tae his banes, Will faither lean an’ lively thochts, A host o’ eident weans."

"I am not asked out to drinking parties and have never been in a Rose Street pub. I can't be a poet."

"The best way to get the better of temptation is just to yield to it."

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