Sturgeon Quotes & Sayings

I'm the leader of the SNP. I think you would expect me to say I would vote SNP in whatever constituency I lived in. — Nicola Sturgeon

( ... ) my preoccupation in a larger sense is the optimum man. The question of establishing an internal ecology, where the optimum liver works with the optimum spleen and the optimum eyeball and so forth. Now, when you get to the mind - not the brain, but the optimum mind - then you have the whole inner space idea; my conviction is that there's more room there than there is in outer space, in each individual human being. Love of course has a great deal to do with that, as a necessary coloration and adjunct to everything that we do - to love oneself, to love the parts of oneself, to love the interaction of the parts of oneself, and then the interaction of that whole organism with those of another person. Which is as good a definition of love as you can get, I think. — Theodore Sturgeon

In particular, I want to set a challenge to public bodies and private companies to improve gender balance on their own boards. — Nicola Sturgeon

Inner space is so much more interesting, because outer space is so empty. — Theodore Sturgeon

There is in certain living souls a quality of loneliness unspeakable, so great it must be shared as company is shared by lesser beings. Such a loneliness is mine; so know by this that in immensity there is one lonelier than you. — Theodore Sturgeon

I think the fact that people are even talking about the prospect of the Tories coming second is less about anything the Tories have done and more about the failures of Labour to set out, in any kind of coherent sense, what it's for anymore. — Nicola Sturgeon

Ask the next question, and the one that follows that, and the one that follows that. It's the symbol of everything humanity has ever created, and is the reason it has been created. — Theodore Sturgeon

I wrote the very first stories in science fiction which dealt with homosexuality, The World Well Lost and Affair With a Green Monkey. — Theodore Sturgeon

I was studious and bookish. Not just as a child but also as a teenager. I took myself too seriously. — Nicola Sturgeon

I'm not a scientist. If there is a risk to our environment, there will be no fracking. — Nicola Sturgeon

An old-shoe lover loves loving old shoes. — Theodore Sturgeon

The only thumbnail you'll get from me is this: no one knows what's really wrong with you but you; no one can find a cure for it but you; no one but you can identify it as a cure; and once you find it, no one but you can do anything about it. — Theodore Sturgeon

Most people would agree that the E.U. is too bureaucratic, not transparent or democratic enough and that it often interferes too much in matters that are best left to national governments. — Nicola Sturgeon

Thatcher was the motivation for my entire political career. I hated everything she stood for. — Nicola Sturgeon

The U.K.'s debt belongs legally to Westminster, so Scotland, by definition, can't default on it. — Nicola Sturgeon

There was so much that you could do, instead of looking for things that you couldn't do. — Theodore Sturgeon

These are human beings with real lives and the uncertainty and the fear that any of them face right now could be ended at a stroke if we had all the candidates for prime minister simply say that the right to remain here is not in question and I call again upon Theresa May and on the current prime minster to do that. That would be the humane thing to do and I even at this stage hope that that's a direction they will take. — Nicola Sturgeon

I am a believer in people succeeding on merit. — Nicola Sturgeon

Labour's support in Scotland depends on their ability to be electable. If they are divided and unelectable, what's the point? — Nicola Sturgeon

Tory governments are bad for Scotland. — Nicola Sturgeon

We've chosen to stay part of the Westminster system, but we don't want to be a forgotten, sidelined part of it. — Nicola Sturgeon

Sporting success doesn't happen by accident. It takes hard work and determination on the part of the individual athletes. And it also takes investment in facilities and training support. — Nicola Sturgeon

It's very much the currency of discourse on social media where political disagreements very quickly become very personalised. — Nicola Sturgeon

For parents - women in particular - good quality, affordable childcare is vital. — Nicola Sturgeon

It is one of the little known facts about modern Scottish politics that it is not quite as cut-throat as people think it is. — Nicola Sturgeon

One thing we've learned is that there's not anything that Nigel Farage won't blame on foreigners. — Nicola Sturgeon

An independent Scotland - like all countries - will face challenges, and we will have our ups and downs. But the decisions about how we use our wealth will be ours. — Nicola Sturgeon

I've not hidden and I'll never hide the fact that I want Scotland to be an independent country. But as long as we're part of the Westminster system, it's really important to people in Scotland that we get good decisions coming out of Westminster. So we've got a vested interest in being a constructive participant. — Nicola Sturgeon

I think the Tories are doing - and are intent on doing - damage to things I hold dear. — Nicola Sturgeon

It is hard to overstate the economic importance of the U.S.A. to Scotland, and that makes it essential that we engage with companies and potential investors and get the message across that we are open for business. — Nicola Sturgeon

Scotland never voted for Margaret Thatcher. — Nicola Sturgeon

The fact is Scottish Labour has lost its way. — Nicola Sturgeon

My politics are wildly different from hers, but someone who has been good for women in politics, stamped her authority on European and world affairs, is Angela Merkel. — Nicola Sturgeon

Is it not typical that we have a Tory Government that wants, just like its pals in the Labour Party, constantly to talk down Scotland's prospects? — Nicola Sturgeon

You don't sit up in a cave and write the Great American Novel and know it is utterly superb, and then throw it page by page into the fire. You just don't do that. You send it out. You have to send it out. — Theodore Sturgeon

That's fairly common. We don't believe anything we don't want to believe. — Theodore Sturgeon

90 percent of everything is crap. — Theodore Sturgeon

The teachers who taught me at Dreghorn Primary and Greenwood Academy were fantastic. — Nicola Sturgeon

Fear is a survival instinct; fear in its way is a comfort for it means that somewhere hope is alive. — Theodore Sturgeon

I learned how to live on five and sometimes ten dollars a week. — Theodore Sturgeon

Voting Labour in the past hasn't protected Scotland against Tory governments. — Nicola Sturgeon

People in Scotland don't take too kindly to being lectured by a Tory Chancellor. — Nicola Sturgeon

God," he cries, dying on Mars, "God, we made it! — Theodore Sturgeon

I wish we lived in a world where how you looked or what you wore wasn't an issue for men or women, and it's by and large not an issue for men, so I wish it wasn't an issue for women, but it is. — Nicola Sturgeon

If Scotland was independent, we'd be the 14th richest country in the developed world. — Nicola Sturgeon

When I can't do something, this always impels me to study it. — Theodore Sturgeon

There are lots of jobs and investment in Scotland dependent on our membership of the E.U. single market. — Nicola Sturgeon

Social media is natural to me, and it's a very immediate way of saying something. It's the way politics are done these days. In modern politics, you can't ignore that even if you wanted to. I can't imagine doing politics without it. — Nicola Sturgeon

Parties that win elections should form the government, not parties that lose elections. — Nicola Sturgeon

I'll be arguing for Scotland to vote to stay in the E.U. — Nicola Sturgeon

The principle of Sturgeon's Razor states that the simplest answer to any problem is 90% crap. — Aaron Allston

Logic and truth are two very different things, but they often look the same to the mind that's performing the logic. — Theodore Sturgeon

I am quite a shy person. You say that to people, and they say, 'You do interviews, speeches. How can you be shy?' But, fundamentally, I am. — Nicola Sturgeon

The novels were all right for a while until she found out that most of them were like the movies - all about the pretty ones who really own the world. — Theodore Sturgeon

Shah Ismail had fallen victim to the rarely used, great Uzbek anti-Shiite potato and sturgeon curse, which required quantities of potatoes and caviar which were not easy to amass, and a unity of purpose among the Sunni witches which was likewise difficult to achieve. — Salman Rushdie

It would be a very serious mistake for the U.K. to vote to leave the European Union, and I think it would be democratically indefensible for Scotland, if we had voted to stay in, to face the prospect of being taken out. — Nicola Sturgeon

You have to be away a long time, a long way, to miss someone like that, and me, I'd been farther away than anyone ought to be for too long plus six weeks. I kissed her and squeezed her until she yelled for mercy, and when I got to where I realized she was yelling we were clear back to the terrace, the whole length of the apartment away from the door. I guess I was sort of enthusiastic, but as I said ... oh, who can say a thing like that and make any sense? — Theodore Sturgeon

Sturgeons Revelation: 90% of everything is crap — Theodore Sturgeon

There are a lot of people who write very intensely about things they do not and cannot do. — Theodore Sturgeon

I found out the differences between "the truth" and "all the truth." You can know some pretty terrible things about a person, and you can know they're true. But sometimes it makes a huge difference if you know what else is true too. I read something in a book once about an old lady who was walking along the street minding her own business when a young guy came charging along, knocked her down, rolled her in a mud puddle, slapped her head and smeared handsful of wet mud all over her hair. Now what should you do with a guy like that?
But then if you find out that someone had got careless with a drum of gasoline and it ignited and the old lady was splashed with it, and the guy had presence of mind enough to do what he did as fast as he did, and severely burned his hands in the doing of it, then what should you do with him?
Yet everything reported about him is true. The only difference is the amount of truth you tell. — Theodore Sturgeon

Would I love to think that one day I would be First Minister of an independent Scotland? Of course. — Nicola Sturgeon

Twitter's probably my bad habit. — Nicola Sturgeon

My wife is beginning to instruct me on means to retrieve dreams, and bit by bit, it does seem to be working. — Theodore Sturgeon

He thought, in your most secret dreams you cut a niche for yourself, and it is finished early, and then you wait for someone to come along to fill it - but to fill it exactly, every cut, curve, hollow and plane of it. And people do come along, and one covers up the niche, and another rattles around inside it, and another is so surrounded by fog that for the longest time you don't know if she fits or not; but each of them hits you with a tremendous impact. And then one comes along and slips in so quietly that you don't know when it happened, and fits so well you almost can't feel anything at all. And that is it.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked him.
He told her, immediately and fully. She nodded as if he had been talking about cats or cathedrals or cam-shafts, or anything else beautiful and complex. She said, "That's right. It isn't all there, of course. It isn't even enough. But everything else isn't enough without it."
"What is 'everything else'? — Theodore Sturgeon

I believe we should support people to live, and I am therefore in favour of good quality palliative care. — Nicola Sturgeon

You write a story about loneliness, and you grab them all because everybody's an expert on that one. — Theodore Sturgeon

Glasgow is a great city. — Nicola Sturgeon

Eddy, I've made my own way since I was a kid, and when I marry it's going to be because the man I love and a girl named Tina are traveling together in the same direction at approximately the same speed, and each under his own power. I won't be steered, towed, nor provided with an icebreaker. ( ... ) — Theodore Sturgeon

Reality isn't the most pleasant of atmospheres, Lieutenant. But we like to think we're engineered for it. It's a pretty fine piece of engineering, the kind an engineer can respect. Drag in an obsession and reality can't tolerate it. Something has to give; if reality goes, your fine piece of engineering is left with nothing to operate on. Nothing it was designed to operate on. So it operates badly. So kick the obsession out; start functioning the way you were designed to function. — Theodore Sturgeon

We all need support and friendship, regardless of circumstances. But where do people turn when friends and family are simply no longer there, or can't help us through a difficult time, or need all our care and attention and can't give us any in return? Thank goodness for befriending projects, who help fill the empty spaces where care, support and a listening ear need to be. — Nicola Sturgeon

I am quite driven. I know what I think, and I know what I want to achieve, but I also hope that people who are asked to describe me would describe me as pretty down-to-earth, loyal, friendly. The more experience I have got in politics, I think the more I have allowed me to shine through. — Nicola Sturgeon

The truth of the matter is that countries the world over have deficits. Let us remember this about Scotland's deficit: it was not created in an independent Scotland; it was created on Westminster's watch. — Nicola Sturgeon

Scotland has a great deal to offer the world in terms of our approach to key economic and social issues. — Nicola Sturgeon

The movers and shakers have always been obsessive nuts. — Theodore Sturgeon

Sitting there most of the night," she said, "I had a crazy kind of image. Do you think two sick twisted 'trees ever made bonsai out of one another? — Theodore Sturgeon

Ninety percent of everything is crap. — Theodore Sturgeon

Let me tell you something: you can not write good fiction about ideas. You can only write good fiction about people. — Theodore Sturgeon

This government and the party that I lead will continue to argue an alternative to the Tory-Labour austerity. — Nicola Sturgeon

In science fiction, you can also test out your own realities. — Theodore Sturgeon

I'm a politician, and as you know, politicians are rarely very funny. — Nicola Sturgeon

A minority government can't govern without support from other parties. — Nicola Sturgeon

I hope nobody in England is afraid of the SNP - there is absolutely no need to be. — Nicola Sturgeon

Ask Baby can you be truly part of someone you love."
"He says only if you love yourself. — Theodore Sturgeon

I was very proud, on just my second day in office, to appoint a gender-balanced cabinet - one of only three in the developed world. — Nicola Sturgeon

Original sin," he said thoughtfully. "That's about Adam an' - no, wait. I remember. Everybody's supposed to be sinful to start with because it takes a sin to get'm started. — Theodore Sturgeon

The story of my very first sale is the fact that I dreamed up a foolproof paper to cheat an insurance company out of several hundred thousand dollars. — Theodore Sturgeon

I said this before and I will have to say it again, when you come right down to it there is not a thing a man needs than a way to fill his belly and let somebody take care of all his thinking, he don't have to if he don't want to. — Theodore Sturgeon

Scottish politics, U.K. politics, is not really like American politics in this respect. Not everybody is absolutely obsessed with image. I'm not saying the United States is obsessed with image. — Nicola Sturgeon

He let a vision of April grow and fill the world. ( ... ) He saw April at the spaceport, holding him in the dark shadows of the blockhouse while the sky flamed above them. We'll go out like that soon, soon, Tod. Squeeze me, squeeze me ... Ah, he'd said, who needs a ship?
Another April, part of her in a dim light as she sat writing; her hair, a crescent of light loving her cheek, a band of it on her brow; then she had seen him and turned, rising, smothered his first word with her mouth. Another April wanting to smile, waiting; and April asleep, and once April sobbing because she could not find a special word to tell him what she felt for him ... — Theodore Sturgeon

Once I had all the facts in, I found I didn't have the immoral courage to pull the caper. So I wrote it as a story. As a teenager, I didn't have any skills for writing as such, so it came out in 1500 words. — Theodore Sturgeon

If your pal or neighbour is in the SNP, you're more likely to listen to them than if you just turn on the telly and see me or Alex. The growth of membership is building a politically engaged community base that hasn't been there in my lifetime. — Nicola Sturgeon

I think you should always aim for more. — Nicola Sturgeon

One of the attributes Glasgow is best known for all over the world is the friendliness of her people. — Nicola Sturgeon

My pledge to you is that the SNP will put women and gender equality right at the heart of the Westminster agenda. — Nicola Sturgeon

I'm not going to do anything that heralds in a Tory government. — Nicola Sturgeon

The old marchioness had him tracing down bed hangings and carpets for her. Send that. Be here. To her, all the world was a menial. If she wanted a lobster or a sturgeon, she ordered it up, and if she wanted good taste she ordered it in the same way. The marchioness would run her hand over Florentine silks, making little squeaks of pleasure. "You bought it, Master Cromwell," she would say. "And very beautiful it is. Your next task is to work out how we pay for it. — Hilary Mantel

I and Alex Salmond are not in competition - we are on the same side; we are on the same team, working together. — Nicola Sturgeon

An independent Scotland could afford pensions full stop - after all, it is our taxes and national insurance contributions that fund them now. — Nicola Sturgeon

Scotland has been re-energized, and people all over the country have become involved in - and informed about - politics and government in a way that I have never known before. In short, we have put ourselves firmly in control of our country. — Nicola Sturgeon

Poverty is on the increase - due to welfare cuts - and demand for food banks has rocketed. — Nicola Sturgeon