It's basically a home-rule issue. I think the governing authority that appoints people as assessors certainly has reasons for doing it. ... And it certainly ought to be the board of assessors' right to say who is best qualified to serve as an appraiser.
John ScottThese days - with the decline of the traditional churches - I'm concerned about where we obtain some form of moral direction.
John ScottUntil you see the cross as that which is done _by_ you, you will never appreciate that it is done _for_ you.
John ScottWe've invested millions of dollars in tourism. Now they're trying to industrialize and pollute the ocean. It doesn't make any sense to me at all.
John ScottI have a backlog of novels which I would love to be working on and would be working on if I were not obliged to hold down a full time job.
John ScottYou look out on the driving range and it looks like snow, but it isn't, it's covered in golf balls.
John ScottPeople of this teenager's age are on the brink of adulthood and have to be allowed a greater degree of responsibility. A consequence of this is a decrease in parental responsibility. Therefore to have criminal responsibility for what you don't know about seems rather extreme.
John ScottI don't see myself as experimenting in any conscious way, it's perhaps that certain books require different densities of language.
John ScottI always thought it better to allow myself to doubt before I decided, than to expose myself to the misery, after I had decided, of doubting whether I had decided rightly and justly.
John ScottThe true experimenters are there but no-one hears about them - the critical/review system tends to concentrate on the handful of 'major' writers and their promising successors; bookshops tend not to sell them; publishers don't promote them. It's the same fate as has befallen poetry.
John ScottIt seems we are capable of immense love and loyalty, and as capable of deceit and atrocity. It's probably this shocking ambivalence that makes us unique.
John ScottMy work is known by too few people for me to be remembered as a writer - that is, beyond those dedicated souls (bless them) who have followed the oeuvre through its various stages. To be realistic, when they and the last of my friends have died, I doubt I shall be remembered at all.
John ScottIt's always better if you're next door. Ideas come up at the oddest times. They don't always come up in a conference call.
John ScottI got to see first hand what he has done to make this a reality. That has been real rewarding to watch him achieve his dream.
John Scott