Quotes from Sleepless in Scotland

Karen Hawkins ·  355 pages

Rating: (2.5K votes)


“Love doesna always mean burning flashes o' passion. Sometimes, it's jus' the warmth o' yer hearts as they beat yer day together." ~Old Woman Nora to her three wee granddaughters on a cold winter's night.”
― Karen Hawkins, quote from Sleepless in Scotland


“I've never found it helpful to treat fate with a gentle hand. Everytime I've stroked, hopin' fer a favor, she's slapped me hand and laughed at me. If ye want something, take fate by the throat and shake it out o' her.”
― Karen Hawkins, quote from Sleepless in Scotland


“Tis a sad day when ye ha' t' pinch yerself t' see if ye're awake or in th' midst o' a night terror. 'Tis a really sad day when ye have t' pinch yerself twice."
Old woman Nora to her three wee granddaughters on a cold winter's night”
― Karen Hawkins, quote from Sleepless in Scotland


“Perhaps the truth was there was no perfect marriage, just some really good ones.”
― Karen Hawkins, quote from Sleepless in Scotland


“But what if we find we don't suit?"
"Then ye'll do as the rest o' us and work at suiting.”
― Karen Hawkins, quote from Sleepless in Scotland



“Fighting lets ye both say wha' needs to be said. Just be sure you fight clean, and dinna bring up old hurts or blame one another.”
― Karen Hawkins, quote from Sleepless in Scotland


“So all we know about Hugh MacLean is that his financial situation is unclear, he has an unknown number of illegitimate children, and the family curse is true. I've caught quiet a prize!”
― Karen Hawkins, quote from Sleepless in Scotland


About the author

Karen Hawkins
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“The essence of this knowledge was the ability to `see all' and to `know all'. Was this not precisely the ability Adam and Eve acquired after eating the forbidden fruit, which grew on the branches of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil'? · Finally, just as Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden, so were the four First Men of the Popol Vuh deprived of their ability to `see far'. Thereafter `their eyes were covered and they could only see what was close ...' Both the Popol Vuh and Genesis therefore tell the story of mankind's fall from grace. In both cases, this state of grace was closely associated with knowledge, and the reader is left in no doubt that the knowledge in question was so remarkable that it conferred godlike powers on those who possessed it. The Bible, adopting a dark and muttering tone of voice, calls it `the knowledge of good and evil' and has nothing further to add. The Popol Vuh is much more informative. It tells us that the knowledge of the First Men consisted of the ability to see `things hidden in the distance', that they were astronomers who `examined the four corners, the four points of the arch of the sky', and that they were geographers who succeeded in measuring `the round face of the earth'. 7 Geography is about maps. In Part I we saw evidence suggesting that the cartographers of an as yet unidentified civilization might have mapped the planet with great thoroughness at an early date. Could the Popol Vuh be transmitting some garbled memory of that same civilization when it speaks nostalgically of the First Men and of the miraculous geographical knowledge they possessed? Geography is about maps, and astronomy is about stars. Very often the two disciplines go hand in hand because stars are essential for navigation on long sea-going voyages of discovery (and long sea-going voyages of discovery are essential for the production of accurate maps). Is it accidental that the First Men of the Popol Vuh were remembered not only for studying `the round face of the earth' but for their contemplation of `the arch of heaven'?”
― Graham Hancock, quote from Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization


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