"If at first you don't succeed, try management. Indecision is the key to flexibility. If at first you don't succeed, take the tax loss."

“I'm not waiting, but I'm willing if you called me up. If you ever wanna be in love, I'll come around”

“It's hard to know whether to laugh or to cry at the human predicament. Here we are with so much wisdom and tenderness, and—without even knowing it—we cover it over to protect ourselves from insecurity. Although we have the potential to experience the freedom of a butterfly, we mysteriously prefer the small and fearful cocoon of ego.”

“My thinking is, government is really there to do the things that people absolutely can't do for themselves. And that's mostly involved with the things that might kill you. And what might kill me? The environment and terrorism.”

“Apart from man, no being wonders at its own experience.”

“I used to think that: whenever I heard that someone had taken 10 years to write a novel, I'd think it must be a big, serious book. Now I think, 'No - it took you one year to write, and nine years to sit around eating Kit Kats.”

Source : "Ian Rankin, author - portrait of the artist". Interview with Laura Barnett, www.theguardian.com. December 11, 2012.

“Only he is free who cultivates his own thoughts and strives without fear to do justice to them.”

“Character is one of most precious parts of you. You can't get involved in things that will damage your character.”

“If it all just happened overnight, you would never learn to believe in what you cannot see...”

Source : Twitter post from Feb 11, 2014