Lanark: A Life in Four Books

by Alasdair Gray

Perhaps I’ve surprised you by putting work and love in the same category, but both are ways of mastering other people.”

Art is the only work open to people who can’t get along with others and still want to be special.”

Also he knew something about writing, for when wandering the city he had visited public libraries and read enough stories to know there were two kinds. One kind was a sort of written cinema, with plenty of action and hardly any thought. The other kind was about clever unhappy people, often authors themselves, who thought a lot but didn’t do very much. Lanark supposed a good author was more likely to write the second kind of book.