Marj Osborne

“The simplicity of this case offends me. It's so neat, it's like a preconception. One thing you can be sure about any preconception. It's wrong. If there's a God and he tried to preconceive the world, he got it wrong.”
― William McIlvanney, The Papers of Tony Veitch

“Gin and catatonic?”
― William McIlvanney, The Papers of Tony Veitch

“Laidlaw was reminded that he didn't want the heaven of the holy or the Utopia of the idealists. He wanted the scuffle of living now every day as well as he could manage without the exclusive air-conditioning of creeds and, after it, just the right to lie down with all those others who had settled for the same. It seemed to him the hardest thing to do.”
― William McIlvanney, The Papers of Tony Veitch

“Theatre,' Davy said. 'That's what houses are, you know. Just theatre. All buildings are. Charades of permanence. They're fantasies. Fictions we make about ourselves. Right?”
― William McIlvanney, Strange Loyalties: 3