Scots Quotes

The Scots are the backbone of Canada. They are all right in their three vital parts - head, heart and haggis. ~ William Osler

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. ~ Alison Weir

I've never played Scots or got the chance to do my Scottish accent. I'm always trying it out in auditions, but they always say no. I'd love to act in a Scottish accent for once. ~ Callum Keith Rennie

[On being told Mary, Queen of Scots, was taller than she:] Then she is too high, for I myself am neither too high nor too low. ~ Elizabeth I

The Scots are a very tough people. They have drive-by headbuttings. In Glasgow a sweatband is considered a silencer. ~ Emo Philips

For generations comedians have made jokes about Scots-Irish in the South inter-breeding. "I am my own grandpa" and all that stuff; you know, because they all were marrying their first cousins. ~ Ishmael Reed

Why are Scots so attracted to the secret world? Smiley wondered, not for the first time in his career. Ships' engineers, Colonial administrators, spies. . . . Their heretical Scottish history drew them to distant churches, he decided. "George! ~ John Le Carre

Jamie let go of me. "Shut your mucky gob, man." He stepped close to our fearless leader in the dark, took hold of his jacket by the collar, and in a dead quiet voice that had gone dangerously Scots, threatened heatedly, "Talk like that again wi' these brave lassies listenin' an' Ah'll tear the filthy English tongue frae yer heid, so Ah will. ~ Elizabeth Wein

One of my greatest sadnesses at the prospective break-up of the Union is that it will set English, Welsh and Northern Irish against Scots in a bitter division of the debts and resources of the whole of the U.K. ~ Rory Bremner

Love was nothing but a lie people told themselves.
But lust?
Lust was real, and he was feeling it. Feeling it to his core. As he held her to him, his blood pounded with the fiercest, most primal kind of need. One that spoke of possession and claiming and mine.
She made him wild.
Surely it was simply because he'd gone so long without female company. Madeline wasn't even his usual sort. Given his choice, he would have said he favored a bonny Scots lass with fiery hair and a knowing gleam in her eye. Not a shy, proper English gentlewoman just learning the taste of her first kiss.
But beneath the shyness and reserve, she possessed a natural, earthy sensuality. He couldn't help but think of what that might mean in bed- when all the rules and corsets were shed, and the dark freed her from propriety. ~ Tessa Dare

God bless the Scots and their puritan upbringing, ~ Jeffrey Archer

Even the pious Scots, locked throughout history in a long-drawn-out battle with their arch-enemies the Scots, managed a few burnings to while away the long winter evenings. ~ Terry Pratchett

Scots from hogtowns or cowtowns work from cockcrow to moondown -- to chop down woodlots, to plow down cornrows. ~ Christian Bök

For dash and gallantry the bloodthirsty Scots, Australians and Canadians led the way, with the impetuous Irish close behind. The Australian to my mind were the most aggressive, and managed to keep their form in spite of their questionable discipline. Out of the line they were undoubtedly difficult to handle, but once in it they loved a fight. They were a curious mixture of toughness and sentimentality ... ~ Adrian Carton De Wiart

For the first time, Lake began to think there was something behind the Romans' reasoning when they built Hadrian's Wall to keep the Scots out of England. ~ Janet Elizabeth Henderson

My roots are Scottish. My dad's parents are from Scotland, and my mum's dad is Scots. ~ Katharine Isabelle

Yin day, when Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh and Wee Grumphie were aw haein a crack thegither, Christopher Robin feenished whit he had in his mooth and said lichtsomely: 'I saw a Huffalamp the-day, Wee Grumphie.'
'Whit wis it daein?' spiered Wee Grumphie.
'Jist lampin alang', said Christopher Robin. 'I dinna think it saw me.'
'I saw yin wance', said Wee Grumphie. 'At least, I think it wis a Huffalamp. But mibbe it wisna.'
'Sae did I', said Pooh, wunnerin whit like a Huffalamp wis.
'Ye dinna see them that aften', said Christopher Robin in an affhaund wey.
'No noo', said Wee Grumphie.
'No at this time o the year', said Pooh. ~ A.A. Milne

Scots have long memories, and they're not the most forgiving of people. ~ Diana Gabaldon

Of the Changis of Lyfe

So nixt to simmer, winter bein,
Nixt eftir comfort, cairis kein,
Nixt derk midnicht the mirthful morrow;
Nixt eftir joy ay cumis sorow,
So is this warld, and ay hes bein. ~ William Dunbar

If I could be anything in the world I would want to be a teardrop because I would be born in your eyes, live on your cheeks, and die on your lips. ~ Mary, Queen Of Scots

Scots they're either nice or they're horrid and these two are horrid. The Scots wont like that Eamon, thats bordering on racism. Its not racism its ethnic criticism Bill. ~ Eamon Dunphy

...the prose tradition had died two centuries before and the recreation of a full canon of all-purpose Scots was beyond even Scott's skill, nor did he attempt it, except, perhaps in the magnificent Wandering Willie's Tale. He took the only course open to him, of writing his narrative in English and using Scots only for those who, given their social class, would still be speaking it: daft Davie Gellatley in Waverley, the gypsies and Dandie Dinmont in Guy Mannering, the Headriggs in Old Mortality, Edie Ochiltree and the fisher-folk of Musselcrag in The Antiquary, Andrew Fairservice in Rob Roy, the Deanses in The Heart of Midlothian, Meg Dods in St. Ronan's Well, and so on.

The procedure gave reality to the Scots characters whose ways and ethos it was Scott's main purpose to portray, and the author in his best English, which lumbered along rather badly at times, did little more than lay out the setting for the action and act as impressario for the characters as they played their roles...

...Scott's felicity in conveying character and action through their Scots speech inspired his imitators for the next hundred years - Susan Ferrier, Hogg, Macdonald, Stevenson, Barrie, Crockett, Alexander, George Douglas, and John Buchan. The tradition of narrative in standard English and dialogue in various degrees of dialect has been the usual procedure since. ~ David Murison

The Danes don't take themselves seriously at all and look for the joke in everything. Us Scots are on the same line of latitude and have the same amount of light, which may be why we have a similar sense of humour. ~ Jamie Sives

Believing a person deserves a defence is not the same as doing anything in your power to get him off scot-free. ~ Tammy Bruce

Fuckin failures in a country of failures. Its nae good blamin it oan the English fir colonising us. Ah don't hate the English. They're just wankers. We are colonised by wankers. We can't even pick a decent, vibrant healthy society to be colonised by. No..we are ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? The lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. The most wretched servile, miserable, pathetic trash that was ever shat intae creation. Ah don't hate the English. They just git oan wis the shite thev got. Ah hate the Scots. ~ Irvine Welsh

It's very important for cities all around the world to reinvent themselves, and Glasgow is a good example of that. The Scots are very nice. I don't think they are burdened by their history. ~ Zaha Hadid

Surely our language is the image of our soul ~ William Soutar

Scots are Jocks,WelshmenTaffies, and Irishmen Paddies or Micks but?it is noticeable there is no similar designation for the English. ~ Anna Pavlova

He gave it the benefit of the doubt; he was Scotch.
("The Wendigo") ~ Algernon Blackwood

You [Scots] come of a race of men the very wind of whose name has swept to the ultimate seas. ~ James M. Barrie

My ancestors are Highland Scots, and my father's home in north Alabama is so much like northwest Arkansas. I have the same allergies in both places. ~ Ellen Gilchrist

After all, in both languages we were dealing in large measure not with English and French, but with Scots and Irish, Bretons and Normans ... There could be no more eloquent illustration of the colonial mind-set than a bunch of Celts and Vikings in a distant northern territory insulting each other as les Anglais and the French as if they were the descendants of the people who had subjected and ruined them. ~ John Ralston Saul

The Scots (originally Irish, but by now Scotch) were at this time inhabiting Ireland, having driven the Irish (Picts) out of Scotland; while the Picts (originally Scots) were now Irish (living in brackets) and vice versa. It is essential to keep these distinctions clearly in mind (and verce visa). ~ W.C. Sellar

It is clear that when an immaterial entity is being referred to rather than a guiser, this figure is a conflation of perhaps a number of Pagan deities with the ecclesiastical principle of evil. The epithet 'old' ('auld' in Scots) prefixes many of the names given to this being: Old Nick, The Old 'un, The Old Lad, Old Scratch, Old Ragusan, Old Sam, Old Horny, Old Bargus, Old Bogy, Old Providence, The Auld Chiel and The Auld Gudeman. Old is clearly a reference to something ancient, most likely belief ~ Nigel Pennick

There is some really good crack when I come back here. This is where I learned to swear. ~ Ewan McGregor

I come from a very critical culture. You know the Scots. They're always saying: 'Oh, no. It will never work. You'll never amount to anything. You've got to know your place in the world.' ~ Craig Ferguson

He had never once felt itchy, in the way that two connecting pieces of a jigsaw never felt itchy, as far as one could tell. If one were to imagine, for the sake of argument, that jigsaw pieces had thoughts and feelings, then it was possible to imagine them saying to themselves, 'I'm going to stay here. Where else would I go?' And if another jigsaw piece came along, offering its tabs and blanks enticingly in an attempt to lure one of the pieces away, it would be easy to resist temptation. 'Look,' the object of the seducer's admiration would say. 'You're a bit of telephone box, and I'm the face of Mary, Queen of Scots. We just wouldn't look right together.' And that would be that. ~ Nick Hornby

It was some time ago - in the twelfth century, as you humani measure time - a man from the land of the Scots. I do not remember his name." Both Sophie and Josh instinctively knew that Hekate was lying. "What happened to him?" Sophie asked. "He died." There was a peculiar high-pitched giggle. ~ Michael Scott

When I was young, I read everything I could lay my hands on, but the Scots in my storybooks spent their time fighting glorious battles, rowing across lochs, or escaping over moors of purple heather. Even those Scots were hard to find. For at school, we recited poetry according to the set texts the teachers taught us. ~ Theresa Breslin

Consider it warly, reid oftar than anys;
Weill at a blenk sle poetry nocht tane is. ~ Gawin Douglas

It was funny on '24' because I'm a Scots-Canadian, and I was working with the great Scottish actor Tony Curran, and we were both playing Russian gangsters. ~ Callum Keith Rennie

Unfortunately, the truth is that people do go scot-free and it's unfair. A lot of the top drug people who have been arrested are also free. ~ Oliver Stone

Let us think of ourselves not as 'yes' and 'no' Scots but simply as Scots, and let us be a nation, united again. ~ Gordon Brown

Quite a few vampires, especially the elders, regarded those who creep through graveyard shadows in batwing capes and fingerless black gloves as an Edinburgh gentleman might look upon a Yankee with a single Scots grandparent who swathes himself in kilts and tartan sashes, prefaces every remark with quotes from Burns or Scott and affects a fondness for bagpipes and haggis. ~ Kim Newman

At least this is a nation, with a religion, a head, a status, a policy. Not a damned Noah's ark: a chicken here, a lamb there, a family of wolves in the next field. I suppose you are proud of your French Queen, playing dice with Scots knucklebones for the greater glory of her native land? ~ Dorothy Dunnett

Scots people were vigorous industrialists and slum builders, but they never reconciled themselves spiritually to their own urban creations... It was better to help to keep alive the native faith and virtues and idyllic memories of the people than to remind them of the scorching fires of Moloch through which they were passing. ~ William Power

With them we may say there died a thing older than themselves, these were the Last of the Peasants, the last of the Old Scots folk. A new generation comes up that will know them not, except as a memory in a song... ~ Lewis Grassic Gibbon

Both my parents are Scottish, and although I grew up in Canada after moving over, all of my family are proud to be Scots. ~ Callum Keith Rennie

It is nice that what eventually became the late British Empire has not been ruled by an 'English' dynasty since the early eleventh century: since then a motley parade of Normans (Plantagenets), Welsh (Tudors), Scots (Stuarts), Dutch (House of Orange) and Germans (Hanoverians) have squatted on the imperial throne. No one much cared until the philological revolution and a paroxysm of English nationalism in World War I. House of Windsor rhymes with House of Schönbrunn or House of Versailes. ~ Benedict Anderson

He tolerated his fellow Englishmen, but the Welsh were cabbage-farting dwarves, the Scots were scabby arse-suckers, and the French were shriveled turds. ~ Bernard Cornwell

Where is the coward that would not dare to fight for such a land as Scotland? ~ Walter Scott

Though the continued march of intellect and education have nearly obliterated from the mind of the Scots a belief in the marvelous, still a love of the supernatural lingers among the more mountainous districts of the northern kingdom; for 'the Schoolmaster' finds it no easy task, even when aided by all the light of science, to uproot the prejudices of more than two thousand years. ("The Phantom Regiment") ~ James Grant

My brave husband came back from fighting the Turks and brought me a robe of silk and a necklace of human teeth. He sat up at night by his hearth telling tales of battle. Apparently the Turks are ten times more ferocious and fearless than the Scots. 'Perhaps we should invite them here to drive the Scots back,' I suggested, and he laughed, but he didn't kiss me. That's when I learned the truth about scars. A man with a battle scar is a veteran, a hero, given an honoured place at the fire. Small boys gaze up fascinated, dreaming of winning such badges of courage. Maids caress his thighs with their buttocks as they bend over to mull his ale. Women cluck and cosset, and if in time other men grow a little weary of that tale of honour, then they call for his cup to be filled again and again until he is fuddled and dozes quietly in the warmth of the embers.

But a scarred woman is not encouraged to tell her story. Boys jeer and mothers cross themselves. Pregnant women will not come close for fear that if they look upon such a sight, the infant in their belly will be marked. You've heard of the tales of Beauty and the Beast no doubt. How a fair maid falls in love with a monster and sees the beauty of his soul beneath the hideous visage. But you've never heard the tale of the handsome man falling for the monstrous woman and finding joy in her love, because it doesn't happen, not even in fairytales. The truth is that the scarred woman's husband buys her a good thick veil and ~ Karen Maitland

By looking after his relatives' interests as he did, Napoleon furthermore displayed incredible weakness on the purely human level. When a man occupies such a position, he should eliminate all his family feeling. Napoleon, on the contrary, placed his brothers and sisters in posts of command, and retained them in these posts even after they'd given proofs of their incapability. All that was necessary was to throw out all these patently incompetent relatives. Instead of that, he wore himself out with sending his brothers and sisters, regularly every month, letters containing reprimands and warnings, urging them to do this and not to do that, thinking he could remedy their incompetence by promising them money, or by threatening not to give them any more. Such illogical behaviour can be explained only by the feeling Corsicans have for their families, a feeling in which they resemble the Scots. By thus giving expression to his family feeling, Napoleon introduced a disruptive principle into his life. Nepotism, in fact, is the most formidable protection imaginable : the protection of the ego. But wherever it has appeared in the life of a State - the monarchies are the best proof - it has resulted in weakening and decay. Reason : it puts an end to the principle of effort.
In this respect, Frederick the Great showed himself superior to Napoleon - Frederick who, at the most difficult moments of his life, and when he had to take the hardest decisions, never forgot that things are ca ~ Adolf Hitler

She'd dreamed of him. Her imagination, unfettered in her sleep, had featured him. He'd been gloriously naked and her hands had explored the whole of him, delighted to discover that the handsome man was even more magnificent without clothes.
Drumvagen might be set into the Scottish wilderness, but what furnished her with a great deal of knowledge she otherwise might not have had. She listened to the maids discussing their love lives with a frankness they never would have had they known she was eavesdropping. Then, there was the sight of the handsome Scots lads bathing in the sea.
The books she read from Mairi's library had strengthened her imagination, adding details otherwise missing from her personal experience. ~ Karen Ranney

Rue not my death. Rejoice at my repose, It was no death to me but to my woes. The bud was opened to let out the rose. The chain was loosed to let the captive go." - ROBERT SOUTHWELL ON MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS ~ J.T. Ellison

Along with the concept of American Dream runs the notion that every man and woman is entitled to an opinion and to one vote, no matter how ridiculous that opinion might be or how uninformed the vote. It could be that the Borderer Presbyterian tradition of "stand up and say your rightful piece" contributed to the American notion that our gut-level but uninformed opinions are some sort of unvarnished foundational political truths. I have been told that this is because we redneck working-class Scots Irish suffer from what psychiatrists call "no insight".Consequently, we will never agree with anyone outside our zone of ignorance because our belligerent Borderer pride insists on the right to be dangerously wrong about everything while telling those who are more educated to "bite my ass! ~ Joe Bageant

A lot of Scots have settled in Canada over the years and it's a very easy place for Scots - they understand us, we understand them. ~ Robert Carlyle

I would rather have a Scot come from Scotland togovern the people of this kingdom well and justly, than that you should govern them ill in the sight of all the world. ~ Konrad Lorenz

Thought I to myself, we shall never come off scot-free. ~ Francois Rabelais

Some men prayed for life and some for death, in languages as varied as their uniforms - the Dutch and Germans and the Scots and French and English tangled side by side, for all men looked alike when they were dying. ~ Susanna Kearsley

Most of the first voluntary Irish immigrants came from Ulster in the north of Ireland. These immigrants were generally, although not exclusively, Protestants. They were known as "Scotch-Irish" or "Scots Irish, ~ Ryan Hackney

The attempt to separate Lowland from Highland Scotland ignores the extent to which Lowland Scots are the descendants of Highlanders, and how many Lowland Scots, like Nan Shepherd, made the country's mountains the focus of their spiritual aspirations. 'Highlandism' is not simply the ersatz adoption of a stereotypical version of Scottish culture which is entirely unconnected with the reality of modern Scottish life: the Highlands are both the geographical and the historical backdrop with which 'Lowland' Scottish culture interacts. ~ Cairns Craig

The Scots will do anything to beat the English or just to see them lose, but I've never bought into that really. ~ Gerard Butler

Did I call them Laurel and Hardy? I meant sodding Romeo and Juliet. This is flirting, á la Gestapo underlings:

She: Oh, you are so strong and manly, M'sieur Thibaut. These knots you tie are so secure.

He: That is nothing. Look, I pull them so tight you cannot undo them. Try.

She: It is true, I cannot! Oh, pull them tighter!

He: Chérie, your wish is my command.

It is my ankles, not hers, which he is binding so tightly and with such masculine charm.

She: I shall have to call you in tomorrow morning as well, to do this task for me.

He: You must cross the cords, so, and knot them behind -

Me: Squeak! Squeak!

She: Shut up and write, ya wee skrikin' Scots piece o' shite.

Well, no, she did not use those exact words. But you get the idea. ~ Elizabeth Wein

The disjuncture from politics, on the other hand, springs from something which concerns all these poets: the shattered nature of Scottish consciousness, which isn't a low flat floor of peasant culture on which all stand together but a wild junk-yard of high culture fragments, English imports, oral traditions of 'the Scots commons' and proletarian 'socialist realism' from the thirties. ~ Neal Ascherson

Above all, you must beware of indirect expressions before a Caledonian. Clap an extinguisher upon your irony, if you are unhappily blest with a vein of it. … I was present not long since at a party of North Britons, where a son of Burns was expected ; and happened to drop a silly expression (in my South British way), that I wished it were the father instead of the son - when four of them started up at once to inform me, that 'that was impossible, because he was dead.' An impracticable wish, it seems, was more than they could conceive. ~ Charles Lamb

The version of technology we live with most closely resembles the one that Scots such as James Watt organized and perfected. It rests on certain basic principles that the Scottish Enlightenment enshrined: common sense, experience as our best source of knowledge, and arriving at scientific laws by testing general hypotheses through individual experiment and trial and error. ~ Arthur Herman

I'll fix things up with George soon as she gets here," Anthony mumbled. "You may depend upon it."
"Oh,I know you will, but you'll have to hie yourself back to London to do so, since she ain't coming here. Didn't want to inflict her dour mood on the festivities, so decided it ould be best to absent herself."
Anthony looked appalled now and complained, "You didn't say she was that mad."
"Didn't I? Think you're wearing that black eye just because she's a mite annoyed?"
"That will do," Jason said sternly. "This entire situation is intolerable.And frankly, I find it beyond amazing that you have both utterly lost your finesse in dealing ith women since you married."
That,of course, hit quite below the belt where these two ex[rakes were concerned. "Ouch," James muttered, then in his own defense, "American women are an exception to any known rule, and bloody stubbron besides."
"So are Scots,for that matter," Anthony added. "They just don't behave like normal Enlgishwomen,Jason,indeed they don't."
"Regardless.You know my feelings on the entire family gathering here for Christmas.This is not the time for anyone in the family to be harboring any ill will of any sort.You both should have patched this up before the holidays began. See that you do so immediately, if you both have to return to London to do so."
Having said his peace, Jason headed for the door to leave his brothers to mull over their conduct,or rather, misconduct, but added before he l ~ Johanna Lindsey

You wouldn't believe it,' Rauve said as his shadow fell across the stable entrance. 'All black like Lucifer the thief was. Fast as the Devil, too, whist-whist-whist, leaping, kicking. Still, I could've caught the bastard if I hadn't been protecting my lady love.'
'The Scots say he can't be caught,' Adric said. 'They say he's not of this world.'
'Well, if he's not of this world, then what does he need my silver for? ~ Glynnis Campbell

WINTER

Puir laboureris and busy husbandmen,
Went wet and weary in the fen;
The silly sheep and their little herd-groomis
Lurkis under lea of bankis, wodes, and broomis,
And other dantit greater bestial,
Within their stabillis sesyt into stall,
Sic as mulis, horsis, oxen and kye,
Fed tuskit boaris, and fat swine in sty,
Sustainit were by manis governance
On harvest and simmeris purveyance. ~ Gawin Douglas

This reference to the Scots side of her ancestry is the first of two visual explorations into Tori Amos's diverse cultural past. As is the case for many of us, Tori's ancestry is a mix of races and religions, philosophies and professions, fortunes and foibles. What to some may seem like a family tree grown wild and untamed is actually a mighty oak that has weathered life's many storms and can still put out a rare and beautiful blossom like Tori. ~ Kevyn Aucoin

Hobbits are a lot like Scots. It's all about nature and enjoying their land, which is a very Scottish thing. ~ Billy Boyd

Scots are born exiles, and Scotland the perfect country to be exiled from. Do not imagine that I am running down Scotland. Far from it ... No, what I mean is that Scotland's beauties, though undeniable, are obvious ones, easy to carry in the heart, easy even to describe to the benighted members of less fortunate races. Lakes, islands and mountains, heather and rowan, broad straths and narrow glens - these are jewels easily worn in the memory ... ~ Jan Struther

I did work a lot in Scots theatre, but I was never really successful in Scottish film or TV until I went down to London - and I had to go to the U.S. to get my big break. ~ Henry Ian Cusick

As Scots, we certainly want change today, but the change the Nationalists offer is not the change we want or need. ~ Douglas Alexander

Wherever I may be
In the woods or in the fields
Whatever the hours of day
Be it dawn or the eventide
My heart still feels it yet
The eternal regret...
As I sink into my sleep
The absent one is near
Alone upon my couch
I feel his beloved touch
In work or in repose
We are foreverver close... ~ Mary, Queen Of Scots

This is perfect!" Gennie shouted over the motor as Grant's boat cut through the sea. "It feels like we could go all the way to Europe."
He laughed and ruffled her wind-tossed hair. "If you'd mentioned it before, I'd have put in a full tank of gas."
"Oh, don't be pracitcal-imagine it," she insisted. "We could be at sea for days and days."
"And nights." He bent over to catch the lobe of her ear between his teeth. "Full-mooned, shark-infested nights."
She gave a low laugh and slid her hands up his chest. "Who'll protect whom?"
"We Scots are too tough.Sharks probably prefer more tender-" his tongue dipped into her ear "-French delicacies. ~ Nora Roberts

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, Welcome to your gory bed, Or to victory! Now 's the day and now 's the hour; See the front o' battle lour. ~ Robert Burns

We Scots have a fierce pride in the things we do that others can never appreciate. I am the British No. 1, but I would prefer to be the British No. 1 from Scotland every time. ~ Andy Murray

The emblem on the necktie reserved for the members of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews - The Vatican of golf - is of St. Andrew himself bearing the slatier cross on which, once he was captured at Patras, he was to be stretched before he was crucified.Only the Scots would have thought of celebrating a national game with the figure of a tortured saint. ~ Alistair Cooke

Mary Queen of Scots is the most 'normal' girl who became a queen that I have ever written about. ~ Kathryn Lasky

He was now beginning to wonder whether the jigsaw was the correct metaphor for relationships between me and women after all. It didn't take account of the sheer stubbornness of human beings, their determination to affix themselves to another even if they didn't fit. They didn't care about jutting off at weird angles, and they didn't care about phone booths and Mary, Queen of Scots. They were motivated not by seamless and sensible matching, but by eyes, mouths, smiles, minds, breasts and chests and bottoms, wit, kindness, charm, romantic history and all sorts of other things that made straight edges impossible to achieve. ~ Nick Hornby

The Scots take what they want when they want it. She also said they have special preferences." "And what might those be?" Beak asked. "Strong horses, fat sheep, and soft women," Mary said. "Horses, sheep, and women? ~ Julie Garwood

It is a great comfort to a rambling people to know that somewhere there is a permanent home
perhaps it is the most final of the comforts they ever really know. ~ Ben Robertson

Sidheag could be quite crass, the result of having been raised by men, or Scots, or soldiers, or werewolves, or all four. ~ Gail Carriger

The worst imposition of all was to be instructed to take on some costly, long-standing obligation to the crown. Such was the fate of Bess of Hardwick's husband, the sixth Lord Shrewsbury. For sixteen years he was required to act as jailer to Mary, Queen of Scots, which in effect meant maintaining the court of a small, fantastically disloyal state in his own home. ~ Bill Bryson

We can have enhanced devolution - greater powers in Scotland - but within the strength, security and stability of the United Kingdom, and I think that's what most Scots want. ~ Douglas Alexander

In such a wild, uncharted place the book of God was vital, for it nourished their spirit and laid boundaries for their conduct. Other subjects simply had no relevance. Trigonometry and calculus would not help them find their way among the mountain trails. Adam Smith's economics were of no consequence in the matter of planting corn and breeding cattle. Nor did they need the essays of Plato or the plays of Shakespeare to teach them how to shoot a rifle, or to make clothes from animal skins, or to clear away the wilderness with their own bare hands. ~ James Webb

I was in a Highland Regiment, as you know - the Scots Guards - and I'll tell you something: there is nothing in the world like the sound of the bagpipes to raise a man's morale, to lift his spirits, and give him strength. However tired and thirsty we were, the bagpipes at the front of the column only had to strike up and within seconds you felt your feet lift off the ground, your step lighten, your spirits rise, and every man-Jack was marching strong, in rhythm to the pipes. ~ Jennifer Worth

Mary was like a caged tiger in the first days of her captivity. Keen, alert, and watchful, she listened tensely each dawn for the key that unlocked her door. After breakfast she watched the road for messengers, pacing back and forth like a confined feline.
But no messengers ever came.
Elizabeth had abandoned her. Or forgotten her.
And the days passed.
Little by little, the Queen of Scots grew accustomed to her captivity. She no longer heard the key in the lock, or the footsteps outside her door. More often than not it was the maid's cheerful voice that woke her, along with the hand on Mary's shoulder and the delicious smells wafting from the breakfast tray. ~ Margaret George

As Scots - like everyone else - we live in an increasingly inter-connected world that demands shared solutions to shared problems. Walking away from others have never been our way. Walking with others has been our heritage and still represents our best future. ~ Douglas Alexander

No one provokes me with impunity. ~ Mary, Queen Of Scots

Frugal is an old-fashioned, mostly unused word and frugality is is an old-fashioned mostly unused virtue that has been waiting for hard times to come back. The Scots have another word for it - canny.

Keith Smith, Hard Times Handbook, 1984 ~ Keith Smith

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. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

The working classes in England were always sentimental, and the Irish and Scots and Welsh. The upper-class English are the stiff-upper-lipped ones. And the middle class. They're the ones who are crippled emotionally because they can't move up, and they're desperate not to move down. ~ Tracey Ullman

[Macbeth] is historically set in a place depicted by Shakespeare as brutal and violent, incredibly superstitious, and that's something that I do believe is Scottish. ~ James McAvoy

I took the first James Kelman novel, 'The Bus Conductor Hines', home to my dad. I thought, 'My dad will like this; it's written in Scots.' But my dad said: 'I can't read that.' He was reading James Bond and John le Carre. That was part of what attracted me to crime - the idea of getting a wide audience. ~ Ian Rankin

To see justice done, men were prepared to take the law into their own hands. In the Carolinas, bands of vigilantes or Regulators crisscrossed the territory in the late 1760s, stamping out local hooligans and waging war on interlopers. This vigilante attitude was epitomized by a Scots Borders descendant from Pittsylvania County, Virginia, named Captain William Lynch. He ruled as virtual dictator of his county, punishing wrongdoers and warning lawless elements that "we will inflict such corporal punishment on him or them, as to us shall seem adequate to the crime committed or the damage sustained." "Lynch's Law," and the punishments and hangings it inflicted, also became part of American culture - an ugly part, but a legacy of a harsh world and a harsh, unforgiving people. ~ Arthur Herman

The Scots say that Nature itself dictated that golf should be played by the seashore. Rather, the Scots saw in the eroded sea coasts a cheap battleground on which they could whip their fellow men in a game based on the Calvinist doctrine that man is meant to suffer here below and never more than when he goes out to enjoy himself. ~ Alistair Cooke