Quotes from 2017

Light in Scotland has a quality I have not met elsewhere. It is luminous without being fierce, penetrating to immense distances with an effortless intensity.

But Morgenes told me any gift that cannot be thrown away is not a gift but a trap.

There are plans that come off the rails as soon as they start moving, and plans that get you frightened because they seem to be going too well, too smoothly, picking up a scary speed…

The world, made complex by technology, was becoming simple again, its technology hidden deeply behind the face of reality.

I prefer reason and agreement. Allies are much more useful than bodies.

He had been running, he recalled. Running as one does sometimes but only in dreams – in long, floating steps that reach for leagues and seem barely to touch down.

Our madness-measure is always changing. Probably we are less tolerant of madness now than at any period in history. There is no place for it. Crucially, there is no time for it. Going mad takes time. Getting sane takes time.