Celtic Quotes

1. "... Likewise, Oscar Wilde asked an English journalist to look over 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' before publication: "Will you also look after my 'wills' and 'shalls' in proof. I am Celtic in my use of these words, not English." Wilde's novel upset virtually every code of late Victorian respectability, but he had to get his modal auxiliaries just right."
Author: Andrew Elfenbein

2. "You sleep with a dream of summer weather,wake to the thrum of rain—roped down by rain.Nothing out there but drop-heavy feathers of grass and rainy air. The plastic table on the terracehas shed three legs on its way to the garden fence. The mountains have had the sense to disappear. It's the Celtic temperament—wind, then torrents, then remorse.Glory rising like a curtain over distant water.Old stonehouse, having steered us through the dark,docks in a pool of shadow all its own.That widening crack in the gloom is like good luck.Luck, which neither you nor tomorrow can depend on."
Author: Anne Stevenson

3. "At this point Alexander was visited by envoys from Syrmus, the King of the Triballians, and from the various other independent tribes along the Danube. The Celts from the Adriatic Sea also sent representatives - men of haughty demeanour and tall in proportion. All professed a desire for Alexander's friendship, and mutual pledges were given and received. Alexander asked the Celtic envoys what they were most afraid of in this world, hoping that the power of his own name had got as far as their country, or even further, and that they would answer, 'You, my lord.' However, he was disappointed; for the Celts, who lived a long way off in country not easy to penetrate, and could see that Alexander's expedition was directed elsewhere, replied that their worst fear was that the sky might fall on their heads. None the less, he concluded an alliance of friendship with them and sent them home, merely remarking under his breath that the Celts thought too much of themselves."
Author: Arrian

4. "There's a tipping point that happens with soccer in which you just kinda get it. I was drawn to it because the best soccer teams play similarly to my favorite basketball teams - like the eighties Lakers or eighties Celtics - teams that emphasized teamwork over individualism and relied on passing as their biggest ongoing edge."
Author: Bill Simmons

5. "I lived to play basketball. Growing up as a kid, Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics were my favorite team. The way they played, the teamwork, the sacrifice, the commitment, the joy, the camaraderie, the relationship with the fans."
Author: Bill Walton

6. "His ability to evoke Celtic pride was incredible. He would always talk about how all the old players called him up after an embarrasing performance and wanted to disassociate themselves from the Celtics. They wanted to mail in their championship rings, wanted their numbers removed from the rafters, and by this point there would be tears rolling down our cheeks and we'd want to kill."
Author: Bill Walton On K.C. Jones

7. "For the house of Dunraven, the ravens represented a spiritual claim to the Tower for the Celtic, especially the Welsh, people. For the English, the ravens represented the colorful savagery of their ancestors, which, however, testified to the exalted state of civilization they had since achieved. The national sagas of the Welsh and English gradually blended in tall tales told to tourists by Yeoman Warders, to eventually create a national myth. The romanticized past of Wales, predicated on survival, was fused with that of England, predicated on progress and conquest, to create a legend of Britain."
Author: Boria Sax

8. "The Green Man has also become synonymous with Cernunnos, the Celtic horned God, often portrayed in Celtic art as part man, part stag, who roams the greenwood wild and free. He is a character of strength and power, but often sadly mistaken for the devil by the Christian fraternity due to his horned appearance."
Author: Carole Carlton

9. "The Tylwyth Teg were immortal beings, but the burden of living for endless millennia was often tedium. It was one reason that the Fair Ones tended to play terrible pranks upon mortals. Like bored children, they sprang upon the unwary, seeking diversion. So it had been when a weary Celtic warrior turned reluctant gladiator had fought his way to freedom at last. Wounded and near death, pursued by his former captors, he'd blundered straight into the territory of the Tylwyth Teg in the steep hills northwest of Isca Silurum…."
Author: Dani Harper

10. "I live for the Red Sox. I thoroughly enjoy them. For whatever reason, baseball has been a lot more fun for me in recent years. I loosely follow the Patriots and I root for them. I loosely follow the Celtics and then it gets to playoff time and I don't miss a game. Same with the Bruins. I'm not the diehard fan anymore."
Author: Doug Flutie

11. "I - and there are hundreds of thousands of Irishmen who felt on this subject as I do - have always liked my Celtic countrymen and disliked the English nation; it is a national trait of character, and I cannot help it."
Author: Douglas Hyde

12. "I don't cheer for anyone because my job is obviously more important, but the reason why I got into sports is because of my father. He's a giant sports fan and we are from New England, so he cheered for the Celtics and the Red Sox."
Author: Erin Andrews

13. "Celtic you'll live and Celtic you'll die."
Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

14. "We Irish prefer embroideries to plain cloth. To us Irish, memory is a canvas--stretched, primed, and ready for painting on. We love the "story" part of the word "history," and we love it trimmed out with color and drama, ribbons and bows. Listen to our tunes, observe a Celtic scroll: we always decorate our essence."
Author: Frank Delaney

15. "I love England. I don't really like places when they're too hot. It's my Celtic blood."
Author: Gary Kemp

16. "I did think there were one or two referees who had a personal thing against me. It wasn't them versus Celtic - it was them against me! I just think they wanted to take me on."
Author: Gordon Strachan

17. "I'm a better coach now than when I joined Celtic. The longer you stay in any job, the better you become. If you lose your drive, your enthusiasm, your imagination, that experience is no good."
Author: Gordon Strachan

18. "It took me 35 years of being involved at a decent level of football to become manager at a great club like Celtic."
Author: Gordon Strachan

19. "Basketball's eras are defined by teams - Celtics, Lakers, Bulls - and baseball's epochs are defined by players - Ruth, Robinson, Mantle - but with football, it's the sideline strategists, the nutty professors and top coated Lears."
Author: J. R. Moehringer

20. "It was a very touch- and- go business, in 1955, to get a wholly plausible reading from Mrs. Glass's face, and especially from her enormous blue eyes. Where once, a few years earlier, her eyes alone could break the news (either to people or to bathmats) that two of her sons were dead, one by suicide (her favorite, her most intricately calibrated, her kindest son) and one killed in World Ward II (her only truly lighthearted son)- where once Bessie Glass's eyes alone could report these facts, with an eloquence and a seeming passion for detail that neither her husband nor any of her adult surviving children could bear to look at, let alone take in, now, in 1955, she was apt to use this same terrible Celtic equipment to break the news, usually at the front door, that the new delivery boy hadn't brought the leg of lamb in time for dinner or that some remote Hollywood starlet's marriage was on the rocks."
Author: J.D. Salinger

21. "Celtic 'is a magic bag, into which anything may be put, and out of which almost anything may come . . . Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight, which is not so much a twilight of the gods as of the reason."
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien

22. "I have not been nourished by English Literature. . . for the simple reason that I have never found much there in which to rest my heart (or heart and head together). I was brought up in the Classics, and first discovered the sensation of literary pleasure in Homer...I do know Celtic things (many in their original languages Irish and Welsh), and feel for them a certain distaste: largely for their fundamental unreason. They have bright colour, but are like a broken stained glass window reassembled without design. They are in fact ‘mad'. . . but I don't believe I am...[I] set myself a task, the arrogance of which I fully recognized and trembled at: being precisely to restore to the English an epic tradition and present them with a mythology of their own."
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien

23. "I am consciously trying not to make it sound Celtic or African."
Author: Joanna Newsom

24. "When she had packed all the artifacts that made up their personal history into liquor store boxes, the house became strictly a feminine place. She stood with her hands on her hips, stoically accepting the absence of old Boston Celtics coasters and the tangle of fishing poles, the old dartboard from a Scots pub, the toolbox and downhill skis, the silky patterned ties which sat in the base of one box like a writing mass of snakes. Without these things, one tended to notice the bright eyelet curtains, the vase filled with yawning crocuses, a needlepoint pillow ... Overall, the house looked much like her apartment had eight years ago, before she had met him."
Author: Jodi Picoult

25. ". . . I still hold two truths with equal and fundamental certainty. One: the British did terrible things to the Irish. Two: the Irish, had they the power, would have done equally terrible things to the British. And so also for any other paired adversaries I can imagine. The difficulty is to hold on to both truths with equal intensity, not let either one negate the other, and know when to emphasize one without forgetting the other. Our humanity is probably lost and gained in the necessary tension between them both. I hope, by the way, that I do not sound anti-British. It is impossible not to admire a people who gave up India and held on to Northern Ireland. That shows a truly Celtic sense of humor."
Author: John Dominic Crossan

26. "The Celtic mind was not burdened by dualism. It did not separate what belongs together"
Author: John O'Donohue

27. "I have a short temper - I think it's part of the Celtic background. I used to be a lot more angry, but I was quite discreet with it."
Author: Julian Lennon

28. "Oh, for heaven's sake, she thought with droll exasperation, this certainly explains a lot. It's no wonder I haven't been able to keep my hands off the blasted man since the day I met him. He's an artifact! A Celtic one at that!"
Author: Karen Marie Moning

29. "And what can a simple girl do? (Henry)I was told, by my father, of St. Mary of Aragon who single-handedly brought down an entire Saracen army with nothing more than her faith in God. He also spoke of an ancient Celtic queen named Boudicca who brought Rome to her knees and burned London to the ground. He oft said that a woman was far more deadly as an enemy than a man, because men lead with their heads and women with their hearts. You can argue and win against another's head, but never against her heart. (Callie)"
Author: Kinley MacGregor

30. "Grant us a vision, Lord,      To see what we can achieve      To reach out beyond ourselves      To share our lives with others      To stretch our capabilities      To increase our sense of purpose      To be aware of where we can help      To be sensitive to your Presence      To give heed to your constant call. "BEYOND OURSELVES," CELTIC PRAYER [PL, 45 ]"
Author: Kurt Bjorklund

31. "Adam was in the dream, too; he traced the tangled pattern of ink with his finger. He said, "Scio quid hoc est." As he traced it further and further down on the bare skin of Ronan's back, Ronan himself disappeared entirely, and the tattoo got smaller and smaller. It was a Celtic knot the size of a wafer, and then Adam, who had become Kavinsky, said "Scio quid estis vos." He put the tattoo in his mouth and swallowed it.Ronan woke with a start, ashamed and euphoric.The euphoria wore off long before the shame did.He was never sleeping again."
Author: Maggie Stiefvater

32. "I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and thus effectively lost to us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have recognised them the spell is broken. Delivered by us, they have overcome death and return to share our life.And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) of which we have no inkling. And it depends on chance whether or not we come upon this object before we ourselves must die."
Author: Marcel Proust

33. "Angela Carter...refused to join in rejecting or denouncing fairy tales, but instead embraced the whole stigmatized genre, its stock characters and well-known plots, and with wonderful verve and invention, perverse grace and wicked fun, soaked them in a new ?ery liquor that brought them leaping back to life. From her childhood, through her English degree at the University of Bristol where she specialised in Medieval Literature, and her experiences as a young woman on the folk-music circuit in the West Country, Angela Carter was steeped in English and Celtic faerie, in romances of chivalry and the grail, Chaucerian storytelling and Spenserian allegory, and she was to become fairy tale's rescuer, the form's own knight errant, who seized hold of it in its moribund state and plunged it into the fontaine de jouvence itself.(from "Chamber of Secrets: The Sorcery of Angela Carter")"
Author: Marina Warner

34. "Celtic music will always be around, even if with the mainstream crowds it dies out."
Author: Natalie MacMaster

35. "There's some places where, I don't know if they're fiddle fans, or Natalie fans or if they just love Celtic music, but there's some places where there's just awesome crowds."
Author: Natalie MacMaster

36. "There's some familiarity in Celtic music, even if you've never heard that piece of music before."
Author: Nobuo Uematsu

37. "Certainly my only interest is not in Celtic music."
Author: Nobuo Uematsu

38. "The visible aspect of modern life disturbs him not; rather is it for him to render eternal all that is beautiful in Greek, Italian, and Celtic legend."
Author: Oscar Wilde

39. "The Celtics don't celebrate anything but championships."
Author: Paul Pierce

40. "Just soaking up the history of the Boston Celtics has been the best thing that's happened to me as a player."
Author: Paul Pierce

41. "But her mother had looked at her curiously, gravely, puzzled by this creature who seemed all contradictions - at one moment so hard, at another so gentle, gentle to tenderness, even. Anna had been stirred, as her child had been stirred, by the breath of the meadowsweet under the hedges; for in this they were one, the mother and daughter, having each in her veins the warm Celtic blood that takes note of such things - could they only have divined it, such simple things might have formed a link between them."
Author: Radclyffe Hall

42. "I watched, enthralled, as he painted a large silver heart with flames edging one side. The whole design was Celtic in style. It was beautiful."Where did you get that from?" I asked in awe. I'd seen a lot of his work but never anything like this. His eyes were on his heart, completely caught up in his work. "Just something kicking around in my head. Reminds me of you. Fiery and sweet, all at the same time. A flame in the dark, lighting my way." His voice... his words... I recognized one of his spirit-driven moments. It should've unnerved me, but there was something sensual about the way he spoke, something that made my breath catch. A flame in the dark. He swapped out the silver paintbrush for a black one. Before I could stop him, he wrote over the heart: AYE. Underneath it, in smaller letters, he added: HONORARY MEMBER."
Author: Richelle Mead

43. "I like the normal things of life: I like the Mets, and the Celtics, and the N.Y. Rangers. I like to watch C-Span; I love Costco."
Author: Robert Morse

44. "There was, Katherine speculated, no possible way of concealing his Englishness, or any English person's Englishness for that matter. You could spot them immediately - pasty white; muffin bellied; Rorschached with quasi-Celtic tattoos."
Author: Sam Byers

45. "Cornwall has lots of folk and Celtic music and has that kind of surfer vibe as well. That was my kind of upbringing."
Author: Sam Palladio

46. "He sits, strong and blunt as a Celtic cross, Clearly used to silence and an armchair: Tonight the wife and children will be quiet At slammed door and smoker's cough in the hall."
Author: Seamus Heaney

47. "I like Celtic folk music, Native American music, and any kind of early music. There isn't a lot of music that I don't like... except for Show Tunes."
Author: Terri Windling

48. "There is also the story about Tyrone Slothrop, who was sent into the Zone to be present as his own assembley--perhaps heavily paranoid voices whisper, 'his time's assembley'--and there ought to be a punchline to it, but there isn't. The plan went wrong. He is being broken down instead and being scattered. His cards have been laid down, Celtic style, in the order suggested by Mr. A.E. Waite, laid out and read, but they are the cards of a tanker and feeb: they point only to a long and scuffling future, to mediocrity...-to no clear happiness or redeeming cataclysm."
Author: Thomas Pynchon

49. "When the Knicks won the championship in 1970, our fans rallied behind us and became our sixth man because they saw a group of five distinct personalities come together and play as one seamless unit. Winning takes a game plan and that's where a great coach comes in. He has to have the vision. He has to be the architect and design a particular style of play that his players can work together and excel at. The great Celtics teams that won 11 championships in the span of 13 seasons ( 1957-69) never changed their system. They played the same game regardless of who their cast was."
Author: Walt Frazier

50. "I guarantee you, if you could give me 10 points in all those seventh games against the Boston Celtics, instead of Bill Russell having 11 rings, I could've at least had nine or eight."
Author: Wilt Chamberlain

Celtic Quotes Pictures