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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“Omnia mutantur, nihil interit (everything changes, nothing perishes).”
― Ovid, quote from The Metamorphoses


“Lady Linette has been teaching us seduction techniques.” She lowered her eyes and then looked off across the gray moor, presenting him with her profile, which was rather a nice one, or so Mademoiselle Geraldine told her.

That statement successfully shocked Felix. He swallowed a few times before saying, his voice almost as high as it had been a year ago, “Really?”
― Gail Carriger, quote from Waistcoats & Weaponry


“Between them all the poor little Rabbit was made to feel himself very insignificant and commonplace, and the only person who was kind to him at all was the Skin Horse.

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"


"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.

Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.

But the Skin Horse only smiled.”
― Margery Williams Bianco, quote from The Velveteen Rabbit


“I want to explain everything to him, show him that it’s really not as screwed up as it all sounds, but then I remember that it is.”
― Jonathan Tropper, quote from How To Talk To A Widower


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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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