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d3195c8
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Nobody enjoys being on display," said Isabel. But then she thought: Some do, and so she added, "Except actors. And narcissists."
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narcissists
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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06e2984
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It must be frustrating being a poet-or any sort of artist-and not being able to offend anyone any more.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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d7c9225
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They realized that belief of whatever sort-whether it was the faith in History and the State, as in the shattered halls of communism, or faith in a particular theology-at least made it possible to get through the day. And if one felt better in the belief that one's life made sense in these terms, then what was wrong with that? Was it weakness to allow oneself the pleasure of thinking that one in some way? And did this engagement not resul..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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15004d7
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She wouldn't disapprove of people who gave up philosophy or literary theory to do ordinary things." "Maybe not," mused Maggie. "If we eat pies, then we should never, not for one moment, look down on the making of them."
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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b9a3d18
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Why should everybody embrace the herd instinct, which required one to regard one set of politicians as being always in the right while demonizing another set?
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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a426475
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He was one of those people, she thought, who just seemed to know a great deal. And he spoke so wisely, as if had thought for hours about everything he said.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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690d1b9
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it,' he said. 'People change their
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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6ef25b5
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Sir Seretse Khama,
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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b2746cf
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was particularly hard for women now, when there were so many children left without
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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e6ee292
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IT WAS three days after the satisfactory resolution of the Patel case. Mma Ramotswe had put in her bill for two thousand pula, plus expenses, and had been paid by return of post. This astonished her. She could not believe that she would be paid such a sum without protest, and the readiness, and apparent cheerfulness with which Mr Patel had settled the bill induced pangs of guilt over the sheer size of the fee. It was curious how some people..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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b088832
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Why, she asked herself, why keep a wound open when forgiveness can close it?
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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2a345ac
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He knew that one should not punch people who annoyed one, although there was a case for it at times, a seemingly irresistible case.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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4138c63
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were in need of bodywork. It had always amused
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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cb056a1
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Teaching is so demanding, and you get so little support. That pinch will have done Olive no harm - probably a lot of good.' 'Do you really think so?' 'Yes,' said Matthew. But then he went on, rather sadly, 'But I suppose that's not the world we live in, with all these regulations and busybodies about.' He paused. 'I think you've struck a blow for sanity. Or rather, pinched one.'
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u-s-education
universal-education
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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d507912
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Already many of the memories of the previous two weeks had faded: the smell of that small hotel in St. Andrews; that mixture of bacon cooking for breakfast and the lavender-scented soap in the bathroom; the air from the sea drifting across the golf course; the aroma of coffee in the coffee bar in South Street. She should have noted them down. She should have said something about all that and the light and the hills with sheep on them like s..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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abe9834
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That's the way things are, don't you think? It's human nature. We do things for people we know. Everybody does that.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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561c83e
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Look at the way people try to make points of contact with others when they meet. Look at the way you instinctively try to establish whether somebody you meet for the first time knows somebody you know.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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3c0a502
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It was reasonable enough, of course, for people to wish to speak to a man, if that is what they wanted, but that did not mean that a man would be better.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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45e87a8
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it made me think of everything I had done. It made me weigh up my life. And it made me want to tie things up, so that next time - and I hope there will not be a next time - the next time I faced death like that, I could think:
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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9c16aef
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Be gentle...Many of the people who will come to see you are injured in spirit. They need to talk about things that have hurt them, or about things that they have done. Do not sit in judgement on them, but listen. Just listen.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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67a1888
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They were also shoes that would give the wearer confidence: a person could speak with authority in such shoes.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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60519e3
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DOING THE DONKEY WORK
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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7f9752a
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This was the difficulty with laws and with legal language: they used language which very few people, apart from lawyers, understood. Penal codes, then, were all very well, but she wondered whether it might not be simpler to rely on something like the Ten Commandments, which, with a bit of modernization, seemed to give a perfectly good set of guidelines for the conduct of one's life...
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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3b13308
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IF EITHER OF THEM had felt tetchy, the concert put them both in a good mood.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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a5f6ab5
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People who looked after animals were by and large kind people; they simply practised kindness, unlike those who made much of it. Thus, thought Isabel, are virtues best cultivated--in discretion and silence, away from the gaze of others, known only to those who act virtuously and to those who benefit from what is done.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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9e07ecd
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old-fashioned, gentle Scottish physician, unmoved by the considerations of profit and personal gain that could so disfigure medicine. That doctors should consider themselves businessmen was, Isabel had always felt, a moral tragedy for medicine.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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a072ecc
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A large bird, a buzzard perhaps, was circling on high on a current of air, a tiny, soaring point of black, looking for food, of course, as all of us did, in one way or another.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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dfa3229
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And yet, she suddenly wondered, should you actually lie about how much Proust you've read?
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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9440357
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But she realised that this was what anxiety was like--it knew no rhyme or reason; just as a fear of the dark cannot be assuaged by the pointing out that there was nothing there, anxiety could be without foundation.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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25927eb
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It is I who will beat her if she tries anything. I am a traditionally built lady, you know, and if there are any bad people who try to push me around--or to beat me--then I can sit on them very quickly. And if I do that, then they cannot breathe--all the air goes out of their lungs and they cry out, 'I am not
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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d5159ac
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she found herself looking down on the top of Teenie's head; at a small woollen bobble, in fact, which topped a curious tea-cosy style knitted cap which she was wearing. She looked more closely at it, wondering if she could make out an opening through which a tea pot spout might project; she could not see an opening, but there was a very similar tea cosy in the office, she remembered, and perhaps she or Mma Ramotswe might wear it on really c..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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119fff1
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Saying sorry does not make you look small--it makes you look big." "I think so too," said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. "But some people are small inside, and if you're small inside, you can't be big outside. It just won't come to you."
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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43af787
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If more women were in power, they wouldn't let wars break out," she said. "Women can't be bothered with all this fighting. We see war for what it is--a matter of broken bodies and crying mothers." --
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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aeca933
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She had barely talked to Jamie about his school days, and she wondered whether this was another area of experience that was for some reason out of bounds. Had he been happy? Who had his school friends been? She had no idea. There must be a reason why he had decided not to attend his ten-year class reunion; normally Jamie's instincts were social. If invited to a party, he went, and usually enjoyed himself; perhaps this did not apply to reuni..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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998cdbb
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Many people only go to see other people when they want to ask for some favour.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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cb84770
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But God will surely punish her, Mma," then had decided that this was not the sort of thing that people said any more, even if it was what they were thinking. The trouble was, she thought, that God had so many people to punish these days that he might just not find the time to get round to dealing with Violet Sephotho. It was a disappointing thought--a lost opportunity, in a sense: she would very willingly have volunteered her services to as..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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5218ee9
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Elysian
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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0e73bc7
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It is so easy to thank people," said Mma Ramotswe, passing the letter over to Mma Makutsi, "and most people don't bother to do it. They don't thank the person who does something for them. They just take it for granted."
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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f8b95d8
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Now, as he finished the last of his porridge, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni reminded himself that the one thing he felt certain about when it came to women was that you could never be sure.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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1747837
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Some knowledge is a fish," she muttered. "Some is a serpent."
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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9e1f9b1
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sometimes the people who were closest to you were also those who were furthest away.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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9d5bcba
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If people came at you and started to scratch you, then of course you had the right to sit on them. Even Nelson Mandela, she told herself, who was a good and gentle man, would have agreed with that.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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e95af7d
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love was a form of blindness that closed the eyes to the most glaring faults.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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f75848b
|
An Englishman was reflecting on the different words that people use for fish. 'Isn't it strange,' he said, 'that the French say le poisson, the Spanish say el pescado, and the English call it fish--which is what it is.'
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Alexander McCall Smith |