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a83410a
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So plans were useful only in revealing what people wished for. If you wanted to know what they would actually do, then the only way of finding out was by watching them and seeing what they did. Then you would know what they might do in the future--because most people did what they had always done. That,
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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0b1f046
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You're not angry, Mma?" She shook her head. What was the point of anger? There were occasions when Mma Ramotswe, like all of us, could feel angry, but they were few--and they never lasted long. Anger, Obed Ramotswe had explained to her once, is no more than a salt that we rub into our wounds. She had never forgotten that--along with the things he said about cattle, and Botswana, and the behaviour of the rains."
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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f4c5f86
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As she spoke, Isabel found herself thinking of the power of words. A single word, a phrase, a sentence or two could have such extraordinary power; could end a world, break a heart or, as in this case, consign another to moral purdah.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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e162460
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Being loved and admired by a man like that - and she knew that this man, this mechanic, this fixer of machines with their broken hearts, did indeed love and admire her - was like walking in the sunshine; it gave the same feeling of warmth and pleasure to bask in the love of one who has promised it, publicly at a wedding ceremony, and who is constant in his promise that such love will be given for the rest of his days. What more could any wo..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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6088288
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That would have been taken out of the Munrowe voice two or three generations ago through being educated at schools that modelled themselves on the English public-school system, even if they were in Scotland.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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09e5332
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Let's not have a sniffle, let's have a jolly good cry And always remember, the longer you live, the sooner you jolly well die.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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1006369
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We should all busy ourselves in being who we are,
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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e003966
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Time, she felt, made quite enough claims on us, without our conniving in its relentless tyranny.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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f25ad95
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Perhaps there was no real point to our existence-or none that we could discern-and that meant that the real question that had to be asked was this: How can I make my life bearable? We are here whether we like it or not, and by and large we seem to have a need to continue. In that case, the real question to be addressed is: How are we going to make the experience of being here as fulfilling, as good as possible? That
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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5852c03
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She knew as well as anyone that the world could be a place of trial and sorrow, that there was injustice and suffering and heartlessness - there was enough of all that to fill the great Kalahari twice over, but what good did it do to ponder that and that alone? None, she thought.
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suffering
sorrow
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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b1b5cd1
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We are the ones who first ploughed the earth when Modise (God) made it," ran an old Setswana poem. "We were the ones who made the food. We are the ones who look after the men when they are little boys, when they are young men, and when they are old and about to die. We are always there. But we are just women, and nobody sees us."
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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3c3c375
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And they both had the land about them; the sky that went on forever, it seemed, and was filled with sun and with the air that they all needed, that the cattle needed, that the animals in the Kalahari needed--there was plenty of that; they had Botswana. So everybody had the things that mattered, when you came to think of it...
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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282f35e
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She had muttered the words without realising, as unintentionally as she had said co-director. It was a worrying prospect: if one started to say what one was thinking, the results could be very embarrassing. She might think, Oh, there goes Mma Makutsi again--sounding off about the usual things, and were she to say that, the consequences would be awkward. There would be all sorts of misunderstandings ... or would they be misunderstandings at ..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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a46db4d
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It was all a question of face, she decided: you had to leave room for face to be saved.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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c0f866c
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Everything could always be worse,' she would say, 'and so be grateful that things are only as bad as they are.' She
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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5d8d9ac
|
Boys, men," she said. "They're all the same. They think that this thing is something special and they're all so proud of it. They do not know how ridiculous it is."
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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94a8f58
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That was the problem with human failings - they were often more visible to others than to those whom they afflicted.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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43494ea
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And she began to weep, dropping her head onto her forearms and rocking backwards and forwards in that curious motion that is perhaps a subconscious attempt to mimic the movement that brings comfort to a tiny baby. That we should in moments of sorrow seek to return to a time when the harshness of the world could be forfended by the simple reassurances of our parents; that we should do that ...
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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8d68a98
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But who doesn't have a lot of unread books? It's nice, though, to know they are there.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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997b790
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but to the north there was a bank of cirro-cumulus, a mackerel sky, or Schaefchenwolken--"sheep cloud"--as she remembered her father calling it. For some reason he had used German when talking about clouds and sea conditions; an odd habit that she had accepted as just being one of the things he did. "The weather," he had once said to her, smiling, "is German. I don't know why; it just is. Sorry."
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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08589b9
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But who doesn't have a lot of unread books? It's nice, though, just to know that they're there.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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8b815f0
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microbial resistance to antibiotics...
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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b2f3136
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cliched in their repetition and their superficiality, but part of an identity that saved us from feeling utterly lonely and detached, mere passengers on a circular rock spinning through space.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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efc51fb
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It was a voice that you felt you had to listen to--or you ignored at your peril.
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alexander-mccall-smith
peril
voices
voice
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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7a9f519
|
Men, she thought, were odd about their clothes: they liked to wear the same things until they became defeated and threadbare.
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men
clothes
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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8d93dca
|
There is a tidal wave of ignorance, Mma Ramotswe. It is a great tidal wave and it will drown all of us if we are not careful.
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tidal-wave
ignorance-quotes
drowning
ignorance
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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c0cf322
|
and took us to the end of long, dark tunnels, which were filled with green rock and dust. My job was to load rock after it had been blasted, and I did this for seven hours a day. I grew
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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f87615d
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Putting Mr. Polopetsi in charge of the investigation is like putting a rabbit in charge of the airport.
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polopetsi
alexander-mccall-smith
rabbits
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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2fd76a6
|
I watched him walk down the path from the house and then off on to the dusty road. People do that in India. When they reach a certain time of life, they sometimes just walk off and become holy men and never come back.That is what my father did
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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7bab79b
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She was proud of her build, which was in accordance with the old Botswana ideas of beauty, and she would not pander to the modern idea of slenderness. That was an importation from elsewhere, and it was simply wrong. How could a very thin woman do all the things that women needed to do: to carry children on their backs, to pound maize into flour out at the lands or the cattle post, to cart around the things of the household--the pots and pan..
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slender
thin-people
traditional-beauty
traditionally-built
womans-beauty
womans-body
beauty
fat
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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a529427
|
If a person acts out of character, then there's one thing you can be sure of: there is something wrong. I have seen this so many times I have lost count.
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something-wrong
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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9f5b192
|
Why not imagine a talk with a pumpkin? Why not imagine going off for a drive with a friendly pumpkin, a companion who would not, after all, answer back; who would agree with everything you said, and would at the end of the day appear on your plate as a final gesture of friendship?
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imaginary-conversations
pumpkin
pumpkins
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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cf0b300
|
photographs on a wall were there for people to see and to examine if interested; an album is a different thing...
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snooping
photo-albums
photographs
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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193eebc
|
There are broad shoulders, the saying went, even where there are no broad shoulders.
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broad-shoulders
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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1477d5d
|
go badly wrong. Sex, she thought. That is what is going to go wrong here. And she was right. "This woman," Mma Gabane Gabane went on, "this foolish, foolish woman met a young man who worked in the same office. He wasn't an accountant--nothing like that--he was a trainee, Mma Ramotswe, just a trainee. He was eighteen." There was a sharp intake of breath from Mma Phumele, who looked at Mma Ramotswe to gauge her reaction. She would be every bi..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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7fea5fd
|
We all have people in our lives we don't really choose as friends but with whom we're, well, lumbered, I suppose. Heart-sink friends.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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07edde2
|
Penury was a matter of hard chairs and mean cushions; prosperity--old money--was a matter of feathers: an absurd reductionist view of it, but at times quite strikingly true.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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73374fd
|
all the good things that we have in life are on temporary loan, at best, and can be taken away from us in an instant.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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005737f
|
In her experience, the places one set off for were usually still there no matter when one arrived; it would be different, naturally enough, if towns, villages, houses moved--then one might have a real reason to hurry--but they did not.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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5677f8a
|
What we have, we all must lose--that applied to everything, even to that which we thought we had the greatest right. We were tenants of this earth--nothing more.
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earth
possessions
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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5a4f1ce
|
Class reunions were about curiosity; about satisfaction at the avoidance of the mistakes of one's contemporaries, now revealed in their emerging life histories; about reflecting on the ravages--and injustices--of time; and of realizing, perhaps, how strange and random are the twists and turns of fate.
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class-reunion
reflection-on-life
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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223e098
|
Unless we do something about the past, she thought, then it will weigh us down to such an extent that we simply cannot move. Is that what I want?
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the-past
|
Alexander McCall Smith |
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687684b
|
The juvenile adage Never kiss and tell had a sound moral instinct behind it.
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alexander-mccall-smith
kiss-and-tell
|
Alexander McCall Smith |
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bcfff1e
|
people decided what they thought and would not be moved, not even by the most patient, the most rational argument.
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convictions
opinions
|
Alexander McCall Smith |