“My first public impression was my French teacher, Derek Swift.”

“Like millions of Scots, I've agonised over whether to go for independence or remain with the Union.”

“Scotland needs comedy more than ever. With the independence debate, finally after 300 years, reaching room temperature.”

“When I think back to my childhood, it's with a mixture of amusement and embarrassment. I was always forgetting things. My mum called me scatty because I could never sit still. But there was no sens...”

“I love anywhere new and different. That's the fun of travel. I've always loved driving through Spain, France and Italy - sometimes in an Alfa Spider.”

“So to recap: we may or may not be going to war with Iraq because Saddam may or may not have weapons of mass destruction, which he may or may not use, or pass to other terrorists groups with whom he...”

“A cheap writer has an expensive thoughts.”

“It's rewarding if you have an opportunity to do something or to serve, you always give in your best. The world has changed, yes! But that shouldn't make you behave otherwise to the detriment of you...”

“The people of great value are the people who have a noble inner man”

“We have got some very big problems confronting us and let us not make any mistake about it, human history in the future is fraught with tragedy ... It's only through people making a stand against t...”

“Seeds have the power to preserve species, to enhance cultural as well as genetic diversity, to counter economic monopoly and to check the advance of conformity on all its many fronts.”

“When we are surrounded by such diversity - in nature, in culture, in human spirit - how can we stand not to acknowledge it?”

“How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!”

“The mountains are intimations of transcendence, which he is now free to pursue, and the walking writes messages in every cell of his body, telling him that he is not locked inside a cement box, nor...”

“I send thee, love, this upland flower I foundWhile wandering lonely with o'erclouded heart,Hid in a grey recess of rocky groundAmong the misty mountains far apart;And then I heard the wild wind's l...”