"I stood still, vision blurring, and in that moment, I heard my heart break. It was a small, clean sound, like the snapping of a flower's stem."
— Diana Gabaldon (Dragonfly in Amber)

"Each time he took a walk, he felt as though he were leaving himself behind, and by giving himself up to the movement of the streets, by reducing himself to a seeing eye, he was able to escape the obligation to think, and this, more than anything else, brought him a measure of peace, a salutary emptiness within...By wandering aimlessly, all places became equal and it no longer mattered where he was. On his best walks he was able to feel that he was nowhere. And this, finally was all he ever asked of things: to be nowhere. (City of Glass)
"
— Paul Auster (The New York Trilogy: City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room)

"Twelve highlanders and a piper make a rebellion."
— Scottish Proverb

"But he'll never be fully recognised, because Scots literature these days is all about complaining and moaning and being injured in one's soul."
— Alexander McCall Smith (The Sunday Philosophy Club)

"Oats. A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people."
— Samuel Johnson

"BOSWELL: I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it . . . JOHNSON: That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.”"
— James Boswell Samuel Johnson

"Doomed to Hell. Every last one of you."
— June Ahern (The Skye in June)