I distrust speech therapy. Words are the language of lies and evasions. Music cannot lie. Music talks to the heart.

Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation.

You suffer from the oldest delusion in politics. You think you can change the world by talking to a leader. Leaders are the effects, not the causes of changes.

...there were certain chapters when I stopped writing, saw the domestic situation I was in and thought, "I don't want to face this world, let's get back to the hellish one I'm imagining.

I don't think anybody should read anything except for fun because you won't learn anything unless you enjoy it.

Imaginatively Glasgow exists as a music hall song and a few bad novels.

Besides, a life without freedom to choose is not worth having.

I ought to have more love before I die. I've not had enough.

But I do enjoy words—some words for their own sake! Words like river, and dawn, and daylight, and time. These words seem much richer than our experiences of the things they represent—

She also said the wicked people needed love as much as good people and were much better at it.

Glasgow is still full of churches built in the last century. Half of them have been turned into warehouses.

Pink is supposed to weaken your enemies, make them go soft on you, which must be why it's used for baby girls. It's a wonder the military hasn't got on to this.

When you're fighting a crowd, it's good to shout potentially threatening things like "Crossbows!" or "Fire!" or "Giant Flying Cat!" every once in a while.

The last president we had was the smartest guy anyone could remember and he did the dumbest thing anyone has ever seen in the White House so go figure.

Limitation of aims is the mother of wisdom and the secret of achievement.

I don't care what Tom Cruise says about therapy.

Perhaps everything terrifying is deep down a helpless thing that needs our help.

You cannot escape one infinite, I told myself, by fleeing to another. You cannot escape the revelation of the identical by taking refuge in the illusion of the multiple.

Every hour of useful work is precious.