“What satisfaction do you, personally, get from being a writer?" Lanark tried to remember. He said, "It's the only disciplined work I remember trying. I sleep better for it.” — Alasdair Gray Copy Share Image
“At last she interrupted with a harsh rattle of laughter. "Oh, yes, I like this book! Crazy hopes of a glamorous, rich, colorful life… — Alasdair Gray Copy Share Image
“Only bad religions depend on mysteries, just as bad governments depend on secret police." A character's response to a discussion about eating from the… — Alasdair Gray Copy Share Image
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… — Alasdair Gray Copy Share Image
“Lanark said irritably, "You seem to understand my questions, but your answers make no sense to me." "That's typical of life, isn't it?” — Alasdair Gray Copy Share Image
Are there many people without illness or disability who sit at home in the evening with clenched fists, continually changing the channel of a… — Alasdair Gray Copy Share Image
“The world sometimes seems a chessboard where the pieces move themselves. I'm never sure what square to go to. Yet it can't be a… — Alasdair Gray Copy Share Image
A good poem is a tautology. It expands one word by adding a number which clarify it, thus making a new word which has… — Alasdair Gray Copy Share Image
“But leaders need to be mostly dead. People want solid monuments to cling to, not confused men like themselves.” — Alasdair Gray Copy Share Image
“One day after the exams, the teachers sat at their desks correcting papers while the pupils read comics, played chess or cards or talked… — Alasdair Gray Copy Share Image
Think of Florence, Paris, London, New York. Nobody visiting them for the first time is a stranger because he's already visited them in paintings,… — Alasdair Gray Copy Share Image
I distrust speech therapy. Words are the language of lies and evasions. Music cannot lie. Music talks to the heart. — Alasdair Gray Copy Share Image
Movement turns dead dogs into maggots and daisies, and flour butter sugar an egg and a tablespoon of milk into Abernethy biscuits, and spermatozoa… — Alasdair Gray Copy Share Image
