Schools are not exam factories for the rat race.

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.

The Scottish Labour Party, while I have breath in my body, will listen to the views of trade unionists.

Women are no sheep.

We do many things carelessly or unwillingly, but nothing studiously unless we are willing and apply ourselves.

Those who win never give up

We may find great relief and inexplicable solace in purposefully looking beyond grief in order to determine the provision made within it.

...[O]ne of the first things a Magnolia League debutante learns: Keep your thoughts and opinions to yourself.

Ask any child who failed to live up to his parents’ idea of success, and you’ll likely hear that they never felt good enough, or that their parents had expectations that they could not live up to.

I'm very inspired by past music.

Language also encodes our past. We want to know who we are. To know who we are, we have to know who we used to be. Consequently, our literature, written in the past, anchors us in that past.

The more tightly packed the group, the greater the need for strict social ranks and orders.

The Lorax: Which way does a tree fall? The Once-ler: Uh, down? The Lorax: A tree falls the way it leans. Be careful which way you lean.