William McIlvanney: Laidlaw

 

His life had been spent acquiring compensatory qualities that weren’t natural to him but which enabled him to survive.

(about Harry Rayburn) 

When you’re a misfit you can do nothing else. Except maybe kill yourself.

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They weren’t talking, they were broadcasting.

(about three young men in a pub) 

Given that I can’t find this sense of the verb mentioned in any dictionary, it’s probably this book I’d picked it up from when reading it for the first time a few years ago.

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Tommy was where so many people wanted homosexuals to be, trapped in a ghetto of self-loathing.

(about Tommy Bryson)

When I was growing up it was this, rather than gay-bashing, that was the greatest danger: the possibility that you’d end up perceiving yourself as a morally inferior being simply on account of who you liked.

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He could think of nowhere to go but away.

(about Lennie Wilson) 

Many’s the time I moved flat, even town. With only a few exceptions I didn’t have much of an idea about the place I was going to (sometimes didn’t even look forward to getting there), but I couldn’t wait to get out of where I was.

(originally posted on WordPress)