My biggest ambition is to bring together what happens in the real world with what politicians talk about.

Separation and devolution are two completely different concepts which cannot be mixed together. One is not a stop on the way to the other.

I love hard political debate and I love beating somebody on a political point but what I'm more frustrated by is the politics where you play the man not the politics.

Scotland cannot be the only 'something for nothing' country in the world.

My Scottish Labour Party is a crusade - to fight poverty, inequality and injustice.

What I will say will not always please you, but what I say will always be honest and true and how I genuinely see it.

Telling the truth, and confronting the challenge, is what politics is about.

We shall seek debate without division or rancour.

My working life has always been wrapped up in doing my job to the best of my abilities and doing the best for my family. It is not a contest between the two.

I got a very strong sense from my mother, in particular, that we are all equal in the sight of God.

Schools are not exam factories for the rat race.

I work out every day, and I eat 1, 200 calories. Here's the truth - like I've said to everybody, 'Every diet works if you follow the diet.'

We never do evil so effectually as when we are led to do it by a false principle of conscience.

UNIX is simple and coherent, but it takes a genius (or at any rate, a programmer) to understand and appreciate its simplicity.

She was a mischief, and that was a satisfaction; no longer was she a huntress of corralled game

During my first month in Italy I lived a nomadic life.

We do not learn from experience...we learn from reflecting on experience.

Real theology is always rather shocking to people who already think they know what they think. I'm still shocked myself.

Little late for that now. I don’t think an ‘Oops, my bad, my weapon accidentally misfired two dozen rounds’ will work to get me out of this. (Devyn)

The writer presents himself to the blank page not with an open passport but an open heart.

Deerstalking would be a very fine sport if only the deer had guns.