Eileen

“Very poor children learn to beg, lie and steal from their parents – they would hardly survive otherwise. Prosperous parents tell their children that nobody should lie, steal or kill, and that idleness and gambling are vices. They then send them to schools where they suffer if they do not disguise their thoughts and feelings and are taught to admire killers and stealers like Achilles and Ulysses, William the Conqueror and Henry the Eighth. This prepares them for life in a land where rich people use acts of parliament to deprive the poor of homes and livelihoods, where unearned incomes are increased by stock-exchange gambling, where those who own most property work least and amuse themselves by hunting, horse-racing and leading their country into battle.”
― Alasdair Gray, Poor Things

“I discovered most younger people are happily unfeeling toward parents and guardians they feel confident with.”
― Alasdair Gray, Poor Things

“Prevention of disease was more important than cure.”
― Alasdair Gray, Poor Things

“The imagination is, like the appendix, inherited from a primitive epoch when it aided the survival of our species, but in modern scientific industrial nations it is mainly a source of disease.”
― Alasdair Gray, Poor Things