But the people did get it. They had lost something -- not exactly their fear, but their patience. … - Neal Ascherson

Same topic Authors

Quote of the day

If you take away all the prairie dogs, there will be no one to cry for the rain.

Neal Ascherson

But the people did get it. They had lost something -- not exactly their fear, but their patience. Suddenly it seemed unbearable to go on accepting these systems, these portly little idiots in their blue suits, for another year, and then for another day, another hour. That special sort of impatience is the power-surge of revolution.

Blue, People, Seemed, Sort, Systems, Years

Same Author Quotes

There are many kinds of revelation. But the most powerful is the vision which transcends the mental boundary between life and non-life, and Scotland is a place where this sort of revelation often approaches. Staring into a Scottish landscape, I have often asked myself why--in spite of all appearances--bracken, rocks, man and sea are at some level one.

Landscape, Level, Men, Powerful, Rocks, Sea

Who should regulate the media? Who should control the press? The commentariat agonises, as if the choice was between state control through some autocratic press law or a new Press Complaints Commission redecorated with false teeth. But there is another way. Let journalists regulate themselves. . . . Let's have a little democracy in the media. Even in the Murdoch papers, the number of journalists who are irretrievably lawless and callous is quite small. Most of the disasters at the News of the World happened because its editors treated their staff in the style of Muammar Gaddafi.

Editors, Law, Lawless, Number, Numbers, Staff

Well, if there is a spectrum between ethnic and civic forms of nationalism, which is a rather schematic way of looking at it, all nationalism contains elements of both, but Scotland is very far on the civic end of the spectrum. That is partly because nobody has ever been stupid enough to say that Scotland is an ethnicity in a genetic sense. A kingdom of Scotland existed long before anybody talked of a Scottish people. So that is one thing we have been spared.

Civic, Ethnicity, Partly, Scotland, Stupid, Talked

I think England has been in the long-term damaged by Britishness.

Britishness, Damaged, England, Long, Think, Thinking

I went into journalism in a grandiose way. I thought maybe I'd do a little journalism whilst I write the great novel of all time you see -- one has to keep oneself afloat.

Littles, Novel, Oneself, Time, Way, Writing