Hills tell old stories. Cliffs are poets with harps.

The imagination is not an escape, but a return to the richness of our true selves; a return to reality.

In Scotland, when people congregate, they tend to argue and discuss and reason; in Orkney, they tell stories.

Without the story - in which everyone living, unborn and dead, participates - men are no more than bits of paper blown on the cold wind.

As soon as the seal was clear of the water, it reared up and its skin slipped down to the sand. What had been a seal was a white-skinned boy

Old wisdom out of the cluster of gathering shadows.

We never find what we set out hearts on. We ought to be glad of that.

The Orkney imagination is haunted by time.

I'm not capable of being casual with you, Lily.

We always get help we ask for. "Knock and the door will open" Make sure it's the right door.

He didn't create the spark, he set the fire

Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.

I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free... so other people would be also free.

Twitter is a human seismograph

As you get older, though, you realize there are fire extinguishers. You do have an ability to control the flames.

The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

There is nothing like a start, and being born, however pessimistic one may become in later years, is undeniably a start.

It's I who have to talk fast. It's you who have to think fast.