Author: Ian Rankin

Cites

• Hugh MacDiarmid (1)
  • IN: Mortal Causes (1994) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: Perhaps Edinburgh's terrible inability to speak out, Edinburgh's silence with regard to all it should be saying, Is but the hush that precedes the thunder, The liberating detonation so oppressively imminent now?
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, UK
• Tom Waits (1)
  • IN: Mortal Causes (1994) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: We're all gonna be just dirt in the ground
    FROM: dirt in the ground, (1992), Song, US
• Bono (1)
  • IN: The Naming of the Dead (2006) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: Write us a chapter to be proud of.
    FROM: Bono, in a message to the G8, (None), Letter, Ireland
• A. L. Kennedy (1)
  • IN: The Naming of the Dead (2006) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: We have the choice to try for a new world every day, to tell what we know of the truth every day, to take small actions every day.
    FROM: A. L. Kennedy, writing about the march on Gleneagles, (None), NULL, NULL
• T. S. Eliot (1)
  • IN: The Hanging Garden (1998) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable
    FROM: Burnt Norton, (1936), Poem, UK
• Arthur Freed (1)
  • IN: The Hanging Garden (1998) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: I went to Scotland and found nothing there that looks like Scotland
    FROM: Producer Brigadoon, (1953), NULL, US
• Norman MacCaig (1)
  • IN: Exit Music (2007) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: The frontier is never somewhere else. And no stockades can keep the midnight out.
    FROM: Hotel Room, 12th Floor', (1968), Poem, UK
• Andrew O'Hagan (2)
  • IN: Exit Music (2007) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: My father always said a policeman's knock is unmistakable, and it is, the rap on the paintwork a very public command, feasting the hearer's capacity for guilt.
    FROM: Be Near Me, (2006), NULL, UK
  • IN: Dead Souls (1999) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: The world is full of missing persons, and their numbers increase all the time.The space they occupy lies somewhere between what we know about the ways of being alive and what we hear about the ways of being dead. They wander there, unaccompanied and unknowable, like shadows of people.
    FROM: The Missing, (1995), Book, UK
• Anonymous (1)
  • IN: A Question of Blood (2003) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: Ita res accendent lumina rebus.
    FROM: NULL, (None), [NA], NULL
• James Hutton (1)
  • IN: A Question of Blood (2003) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: We find… no prospect of an end.
    FROM: James Hutton, Scientist,1785, (1785), NULL, UK
• Deacon Blue (1)
  • IN: Set In Darkness (2000) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: And this long narrow land Is full of possibility...
    FROM: Wages Day, (1989), Song, UK
• David Hume (1)
  • IN: Let It Bleed (1995) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: Avarice, the spur of industry.
    FROM: Of Civil Liberty, (1741), Essay, UK
• Muriel Spark (1)
  • IN: Let It Bleed (1995) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: The more sophisticated readers simply repeated the Italian proverb, ‘If it isn’t true, it’s to the point.’
    FROM: The Public Image, (1968), Novel, UK
• Martin Amis (1)
  • IN: Let It Bleed (1995) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: Without women, life is a pub.
    FROM: Money, (1984), NULL, UK
• James Hogg (1)
  • IN: Black Book (1993) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: To the wicked, all things are wicked: but to the just, all things are just and right
    FROM: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, (1824), Novel, UK
• Malcolm Lowry (1)
  • IN: Tooth and Nail (1992) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: How many wolves do we feel on our heels, while our real enemies go in sheepskin
    FROM: Under the Volcano, (1947), Novel, UK
• Jackie Leven (1)
  • IN: Saints of the Shadow Bible (2013) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: The saints of the shadow bible following me From bar to bar into eternity. .
    FROM: One Man, One Guitar, (2007), Song, UK
• Robert Burns (1)
  • IN: Black and Blue (1997) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: O would, ere I had seen the day That treason thus could sell us, My auld grey head had lien in clay, Wi’ Bruce and loyal Wallace! But pith and power, till my last hour, I’ll mak’ this decleration; We’re bought and sold for English gold – Such a parcel of rogues in a nation.
    FROM: Fareweel to a’ Our Scottish Fame (Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation), (1791), Poem, UK
• James Ellroy (1)
  • IN: Black and Blue (1997) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: If you have the Stones... to say I can rewrite history to my own specifications, you can get away with it.
    FROM: (Capitalisation the author’s own), (None), NULL, US
• Sydney Goodsir Smith (1)
  • IN: Black and Blue (1997) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: Weary with centuries This empty capital snorts like a great beast Caged in its sleep, dreaming of freedom But with nae belief...
    FROM: Kynd Kittock’s Land, (1965), Poem, Scotland/New Zealand
• Philip Kerr (1)
  • IN: The Falls (None) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: Not my accent — I didn’t lose that so much as wipe it off my shoe, as soon as I started to live in England — but rather my own temperament, the prototypically Scottish part of my character that was chippy, aggressive, mean, morbid and, despite my best endeavours, persistently deist. I was, and always would be, a lousy escapee from the unnatural history museum...
    FROM: The Unnatural History Museum, (None), NULL, UK
• Voltaire (1)
  • IN: Fleshmarket Close (2004) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: In memory of two friends, Fiona and Annie, much missed. It is to Scotland that we look for our idea of civilisation.
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, France
• Samuel Johnson (1)
  • IN: Fleshmarket Close (2004) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: The climate of Edinburgh is such that the weak succumb young... and the strong envy them.
    FROM: Dr Johnson to Boswell, (None), Book, UK
• Friedrich Nietzsche (1)
  • IN: Blood Hunt (1995) Thriller, British
    EPIGRAPH: Then you carried your ashes to the mountains: will you today carry your fire into the valleys? Do you not fear an incendiary’s punishment?
    FROM: Thus Spake Zarathustra, (1885), Novel, Germany
• NULL (1)
  • IN: The Flood (1986) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.
    FROM: Song of Songs, (None), Religious Text, NULL
• Gustave Flaubert (1)
  • IN: The Flood (1986) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: All one's inventions are true.
    FROM: NULL, (None), NULL, France
• Kate Atkinson (1)
  • IN: Dead Souls (1999) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: Once I caught a train to Cardenden by mistake... When we reached Cardenden we got off and waited for the next train back to Edinburgh. I was very tired and if Cardenden had looked more promising, I think I would have simply stayed there. And if you've ever been to Cardenden you'll know how bad things must have been.
    FROM: Behind the Scenes at the Museum, (1995), Novel, UK
• The Smiths (1)
  • IN: Resurrection Men (2001) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: All men have secrets...
    FROM: "What Difference Does It Make?", (1984), Song, UK
• Virgil (1)
  • IN: Resurrection Men (2001) Fiction, British
    EPIGRAPH: Durate et vosmet rebus servate secundis
    FROM: Aeneid, I, 207, (-19), Book, Italy