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d35eb3e
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The whole culture of work had become so intrusive and demanding that people had to do it. And the result was that they were left with little time for simply living their lives, for going for a walk, for sitting in a bar, for reading a book. It was all work.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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d1e9820
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There are countless other instances of Auden's delight in using words on the cusp of that damning dictionary verdict archaic. Never does one get the impression that these words are being used in a showy way: they are there deliberately, and sometimes, no doubt, they are chosen not only for their pleasurable quality but because they have the right number of syllables for the line, but they are never used to impress. Rather, they are used to ..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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9898932
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We do not want people thinking that we're trying to start a dynasty," he explained. "You know how you get those politicians who are sons of other politicians and grandsons of even more politicians. I do not think that is very democratic, and so I shall not be involved in this campaign, even if I fully support it"
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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aae4ebe
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His particular insight was that we need to be at home; all his concerns with division within ourselves, with the tragic flaws in our nature, with the thwarting of love--all these point to the need that he felt we had within us to locate ourselves in a place we could live in with love, with people with whom we could share.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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41511fa
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Mma Makutsi sighed. "You don't understand, Charlie. The word chairman covers both men and women." She paused. "Mind you, Mma Potokwane, many people these days just use the word chair. Perhaps you'd like--" She was not allowed to finish. "Certainly not, Mma," said Mma Potokwane. "I am not a chair--I am a person."
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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3623b35
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Anna asked, "Does that matter? What counts is the result, not the route by which one reaches the result. It's often all a matter of luck." Ulf pondered this. The role of luck in human affairs had always intrigued him. So much of what we did was influenced by factors that were beyond our control--the vagaries of others, sequences of events that we initiated in ignorance of where they would lead, chance meetings that led to the making of a de..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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b0602d8
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The world was a place of sadness and strife, of selfish behaviour and disagreement, of oppression and injustice; and efforts to remedy that, to set right the scales of justice, sometimes seemed like patching up a crack in a dam wall with sticking plaster. But you had to do what you could, and, more specifically, what your role in life expected of you. And he was a detective; he was a member of the Malmo Criminal Investigation Authority, and..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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84e590b
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Dr. Svensson had once counselled him to think of the things you're doing rather than the things you did.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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770298b
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Dogs can read signals -- look at sheepdogs; they understand hand movements for left and right. Dogs are no fools, you know." He paused. "Well, some are. Some dogs are truly stupid, Ulf."
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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777ea2c
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The Germans had a word for everything - a word that could be very focused, very specific, because it could be constructed for a precise set of circumstances. They even had a word, it was said, for the feeling of envy experienced when one sees the tasty dishes ordered by others in a restaurant and it is too late to change one's own order. Mahlneid, meal envy, she believed that was the word - if it existed at all. People invented German compo..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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286b078
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Most children have become very surly. That is because they are not taught to think about others any more. They are, quite simply, spoiled.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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7c22809
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As a general rule, making other people happy is one of the few things we can do with utter certainty that what we're doing is the right thing.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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bef6e68
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and was quite happy to let people get on with their jobs without his breathing down their necks. Privately, he and his family led a model life. He helped with Swedish-adjustment classes for refugees, while his wife, Anita, was an accountant who voluntarily did the accounts of two local charities. Their two clear-eyed sons had co-founded an aero-modelling club for disadvantaged youths. They were well liked in the suburb in which they lived, ..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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b6ef48e
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The tree still celebrates its essential treeness through song, as nature will do whatever we impose on her. Birds still sing their ancient songs in the middle of a bustling city, with all its cacophony of man-made sounds. Dry leaves still rustle like dice even when growing against concrete or hewn stone. Out of a tiny crack in a pavement will crawl a perfectly formed insect, a creature of curves and protrusions amidst a linear world of man'..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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bae134e
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It was perfectly possible to portray scientific knowledge as socially determined - and therefore not true in any real sense - when one was safe on the ground in Paris; but would you ask the same question in a jet aircraft at thirty-five thousand feet, when that same knowledge underpinned the very engineering that was keeping one up in the air?
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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863a827
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am lucky that I can make somebody so happy just by saying something.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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e82e651
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you, I did once, years ago, do a little picture of Margaret Thatcher - bless her - a tiny little miniature. Then I pasted it onto a matchbox." Domenica looked puzzled. "Oh?" Angus smiled. "Yes. Then I stood the matchbox outside a mouse hole. The mouse had been bothering me - he had gnawed away at some canvas I had. So I used it as a mouse-scarer. It was more humane than a mouse-trap, you see. The mouse came out and saw this picture of Marga..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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c9cc0d0
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Look at what very ordinary people have lost, and think about that for a moment. What has happened to working-class communities in Scotland? To miners, for example. To fishermen? Who? You might well ask. To men and women who work with their hands? Who again? These people are being swept away by globalisation. Swept away. Now they're all so demoralised that they're caught in the culture of permanent sick notes. And who speaks for the young Sc..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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3cace88
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She really is a huge fan." Ulf closed his eyes. He saw the professor being pursued by a group of his fans, the huge ones struggling to keep up with the thinner, more lithe fans, dropping exhausted and disappointed."
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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65c9861
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But sometimes cats just have nasty natures, don't you think? And you can't do much about a personality disorder. Cats are psychopaths at heart.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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c9ecc3d
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I can't, Tofu," said Bertie. "I can't join the cubs." Tofu was dismissive of Bertie's protestation. "You can't? Why? Is it because you think you'll fail the medical examination? There isn't one. That's the army you're thinking of. The cubs will take anyone - even somebody like you."
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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ac4fcfa
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I like you when you're algebraic," said Ulf--and immediately regretted it. It was a flirtatious remark--describing somebody as algebraic was undoubtedly to cross a line. You would not normally describe an ordinary friend as algebraic, and then say that you liked her that way. He saw the effect on Anna, and his regret deepened. "Algebraic?" she said, half coyly. "Well, I'm very happy to enter into any equation."
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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30eba7a
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In such a way is freedom of thought lost," said Angus Lordie, who had been listening very attentively to Domenica. "By small cuts. By small acts of disapproval. By a thousand discouragements of spirit." --
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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57b7480
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We all have Proustian moments, but don't really know about it until we read Proust.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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9ab91bd
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Eating with others was different from just talking to them--it was an act of commitment, a recognition of shared humanity. We all share these physical needs, it said; we are brothers and sisters in our vulnerability.
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Alexander McCall Smith |