LONGLIVEVIV

“I’m over five and half feet tall and weigh about ten stone. My eyes are brown, hair black, and I forget the blood group. I used to be older than twenty but now I’m older than thirty. I’ve been called a crustacean, and too serious, but recently I was described by a dependable man as shrewd, obstinate and adequately intelligent. I was a writer once and now I’m a doctor, but I was advised to become these, I never wanted it. I’ve never wanted anything long. Except freedom.” There was a metallic rattle of laughter. Lanark said, “Yes, it’s a comic word. We’re all forced to define it in ways that make no sense to other people. But for me freedom is …” He thought for a while. “… life in a city near the sea or near the mountains where the sun shines for an average of half the day.”
― Alasdair Gray, Lanark: A Life in Four Books

“And here I stay,' said Bella calmly, and as she spoke the lines of her figure and face relaxed into their proper softness, her hair began to settle, her eyes recovered their usual depth, size, and golden-brown warmth.”
― Alasdair Gray, Poor Things

“A great deal; you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way; they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should - so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“You think you are about to possess what men have hopelessly yearned for throughout the ages: the soul of an innocent, trusting, dependent child inside the opulent body of a radiantly lovely woman.”
― Alasdair Gray, Poor Things