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Top 15 William McIlvanney Quotes (2025 Update)

William McIlvanney Quote: “That would have been a nice place, inside an idea, but it wasn’t a place to live. It was necessary to live where the idea and the fact collided.”

1. “That would have been a nice place, inside an idea, but it wasn’t a place to live. It was necessary to live where the idea and the fact collided.”

— William McIlvanney

William McIlvanney Quote: “Good lies need a leavening of truth to make them palatable.”

2. “Good lies need a leavening of truth to make them palatable.”

— William McIlvanney

William McIlvanney Quote: “I don’t like questions. They invent the answers. The real answers are discovered, before you even know what the question is.”

3. “I don’t like questions. They invent the answers. The real answers are discovered, before you even know what the question is.”

— William McIlvanney

William McIlvanney Quote: “Who thinks the law has anything to do with justice? It’s what we have because we can’t have justice.”

4. “Who thinks the law has anything to do with justice? It’s what we have because we can’t have justice.”

— William McIlvanney

William McIlvanney Quote: “Writing is a way of sharing our humanity.”

5. “Writing is a way of sharing our humanity.”

— William McIlvanney

William McIlvanney Quote: “Coulda made something o’ himself. But a luckless man. All his days a luckless man. The kinna man woulda got two complimentary tickets for the Titanic.” The unintentional humour of her remark was like her natural appetite for life reasserting itself. Harkness couldn’t stop smiling. It was as if Glasgow couldn’t shut the wryness of its mouth even at the edge of the grave.”

6. “Coulda made something o’ himself. But a luckless man. All his days a luckless man. The kinna man woulda got two complimentary tickets for the Titanic.” The unintentional humour of her remark was like her natural appetite for life reasserting itself. Harkness couldn’t stop smiling. It was as if Glasgow couldn’t shut the wryness of its mouth even at the edge of the grave.”

— William McIlvanney

William McIlvanney Quote: “Just as the apparent openness of rectitude will have its hidden places where foul things moulder in the dark, so, in the shadowed lives of those outside the law may sometimes be found concealed honesty and naive ideals.”

7. “Just as the apparent openness of rectitude will have its hidden places where foul things moulder in the dark, so, in the shadowed lives of those outside the law may sometimes be found concealed honesty and naive ideals.”

— William McIlvanney

William McIlvanney Quote: “There is a kind of laughter people laugh at public events, as if a joke were a charity auction and they want to be seen to be bidding.”

8. “There is a kind of laughter people laugh at public events, as if a joke were a charity auction and they want to be seen to be bidding.”

— William McIlvanney

William McIlvanney Quote: “Glasgow was home-made ginger biscuits and Jennifer Lawson dead in the park. It was the sententious niceness of the Commander and the threatened abrasiveness of Laidlaw. It was Milligan, insensitive as a mobile slab of cement, and Mrs Lawson, witless with hurt. It was the right hand knocking you down and the left hand picking you up, while the mouth alternated apology and threat.”

9. “Glasgow was home-made ginger biscuits and Jennifer Lawson dead in the park. It was the sententious niceness of the Commander and the threatened abrasiveness of Laidlaw. It was Milligan, insensitive as a mobile slab of cement, and Mrs Lawson, witless with hurt. It was the right hand knocking you down and the left hand picking you up, while the mouth alternated apology and threat.”

— William McIlvanney

William McIlvanney Quote: “The law’s not about justice. It’s a system we’ve put in place because we can’t have justice.”

10. “The law’s not about justice. It’s a system we’ve put in place because we can’t have justice.”

— William McIlvanney

William McIlvanney Quote: “But there are two basic kinds of professional, Harkness saw in a moment of self-congratulatory illumination. There’s the professionalism that does something well enough to earn a living from it. And there’s the professionalism that creates a commitment so intense that the earning of a living happens by the way. Its dynamic isn’t wages but the determination to do something as well as it can be done.”

11. “But there are two basic kinds of professional, Harkness saw in a moment of self-congratulatory illumination. There’s the professionalism that does something well enough to earn a living from it. And there’s the professionalism that creates a commitment so intense that the earning of a living happens by the way. Its dynamic isn’t wages but the determination to do something as well as it can be done.”

— William McIlvanney

William McIlvanney Quote: “Gin and catatonic?”

12. “Gin and catatonic?”

— William McIlvanney

William McIlvanney Quote: “His face looked like an argument you couldn’t win.”

13. “His face looked like an argument you couldn’t win.”

— William McIlvanney

William McIlvanney Quote: “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.”

14. “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

William McIlvanney Quote: “The old man opened the door with all the ease of the Venus de Milo cracking a safe.”

15. “The old man opened the door with all the ease of the Venus de Milo cracking a safe.”

— William McIlvanney

William McIlvanney Quote: “The kinna man woulda got two complimentary tickets for the Titanic.”

16. “The kinna man woulda got two complimentary tickets for the Titanic.”

— William McIlvanney

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