32 Quotes by Alasdair Gray

  • Author Alasdair Gray
  • Quote

    You suffer from the oldest delusion in politics. You think you can change the world by talking to a leader. Leaders are the effects, not the causes of changes.

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  • Author Alasdair Gray
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    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 than our experiences of the things they represent –.

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  • Author Alasdair Gray
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    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, novels, history books and films. But if a city hasn’t been used by an artist, not even the inhabitants live there imaginatively.

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  • Author Alasdair Gray
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    Are there many people without illness or disability who sit at home in the evening with clenched fists, continually changing the channel of a television set and wishing they had the courage to roll over the parapet of a high bridge? I bet there are millions of us.

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  • Author Alasdair Gray
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    Life becomes a habit. You get up, dress, eat, go tae work, clock in etcetera etcetera automatically, and think about nothing but the pay packet on Friday and the booze-up last Saturday. Life’s easy when you’re a robot.

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  • Author Alasdair Gray
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    I’m afraid you’ll have to take up art. Art is the only work open to people who can’t get along with others and still want to be special.

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  • Author Alasdair Gray
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    I ought to have more love before I die. I’ve not had enough.

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  • Author Alasdair Gray
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    I don’t think anybody should read anything except for fun because you won’t learn anything unless you enjoy it.

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  • Author Alasdair Gray
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    But leaders need to be mostly dead. People want solid monuments to cling to, not confused men like themselves.

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