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e73627d
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We might more of us say these words to others, and more frequently--how healing that would prove to be. "Look, we've had our differences, but how about some chocolate?" Or: "I'm so sorry: how about some chocolate?" Or simply, "Great to see you! How about some chocolate?"
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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ccc7bc4
|
There were some people, it seemed, who were incapable of being pleasant about anything. Of course, the cars that such people drove tended to be difficult as well. Nice cars have nice drivers; bad cars have bad drivers. A person's gearbox revealed everything that you could want to know about that person, thought Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.
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personality
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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b33bda8
|
Dieting was cruel; it was an abuse of human rights. Yes, that's what it was, and she should not allow herself to be manipulated in this way. She stopped herself. Thinking like that was nothing more than coming up with excuses for breaking the diet. Mma Ramotswe was made of sterner stuff than that, and so she persisted.
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human-rights
humor
persisting
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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fccece8
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Remember the Hottentots?" asked James. "They've become the Khoi now, which means that the Germans will have to retire that wonderful word of theirs, Hottentotenpotentatenstantenattentater, which means, as you know, one who attacks the aunt of a Hottentot potentate." --
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humor
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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9357f23
|
Sociopaths are attracted to politics because the see it as a sphere in which you can be ruthless and step all over people. That fact that some politicians can tell such awful lies is another example of sociopathy. Sociopaths lie--they see nothing wrong with it.
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liars
lies
politicians
politics
sociopaths
sociopathy
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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3f511cf
|
When you are with somebody you love the smallest, smallest things can be so important, so amusing because love transforms the world, everything. And was that what had happened?
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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6b93b4b
|
We can't have moral obligations to every single person in this world. We have moral obligations to those who we come up against, who enter into our moral space, so to speak. That means neighbors, people we deal with, and so on.
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morality
neighbors
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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ac13da4
|
Most morality, thought Mma Ramotswe, was about doing the right thing because it had been identified as such by a long process of acceptance and observance. You simply could not create your own morality because your experience would never be enough to do so. What gives you the right to say that you know better than your ancestors? Morality is for everybody and this means that the views of more than one person are needed to create it. That wa..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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6876229
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There are many sadnesses in the hearts of men who are far away from their countries.
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homeland
homesick
homesickness
sad
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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7577d7a
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I told him that if a man is born in a dry place, then although he may dream of rain, he does not want too much, and that he will not mind the sun that beats down and down.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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bf6e8b4
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Men are very sensitive, Mma Makutsi. You would not always think it to look at them, but they are. They do not like you to point out that they are wrong, even when they are. That is the way things are, Mma--it just is.
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men
mma-ramotswe
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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3611aca
|
Mma Ramotswe had a gift for the American woman, a basket which on her return journey from Bulawayo she had bought, on impulse, from a woman sitting by the side of the road in Francistown. The woman was desperate, and Mma Ramotswe, who did not need a basket, had bought it to help her. It was a traditional Botswana basket, with a design worked into the weaving. "These little marks here are tears," she said. "The giraffe gives its tears to the..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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31386f2
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People's lives are delicate; you cannot interfere with them without running the risk of changing them profoundly. A chance remark, a careless involvement, may make the difference between a life of happiness and one of sorrow
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women-s-strength
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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710831e
|
pleasure at hearing what all of us wanted to hear at least occasionally: that there was somebody who liked us, whatever our faults, and liked us sufficiently to say so. - Precious Ramotswe
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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64ec4c8
|
Chance; pure chance. But chance was a dull explanation because it denied the possibility of the paranormal, and people were often disappointed by dull explanations. Mystery and the unknown were far more exciting because they suggested that our world was not quite as prosaic as we feared it might be. Yet we had to adjure those temptations because they lead to a world of darkness and fear.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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0846b7e
|
Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill. These were its assets: a tiny white van, two desks, two chairs, a telephone, and an old typewriter. Then there was a teapot, in which Mma Ramotswe - the only lady private detective in Botswana - brewed redbush tea. And three mugs - one for herself, one for her secretary, and one for the client. What else does a detective agency really need? Detective agencies rely on ..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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6190606
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Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was not a lazy man, but it was remarkable to reflect how most men imagined that things like tea and food would simply appear if they waited long enough. There would always be a woman in the background--a mother, a girlfriend, a wife--who would ensure that those needs would be met.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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2390eb0
|
Irene gasped. "Have you taken leave of your senses, Stuart?" she hissed. "Have you?" Stuart closed his eyes. "No," he said. "Au contraire." It was strong language for the Edinburgh New Town, but he had to say it. "Don't au contraire me," said Irene. But it was too late. He had."
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arguments
bertie
french
funny
nagging
strong-language
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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eae205e
|
There were times when an apology was best, she thought, even when one really had nothing to apologise for. If only people would say sorry sooner rather than later, Mma Ramotswe believed, much discord and unhappiness could be avoided. But that was not the way people were. So often pride stood in the way of apology, and then, when somebody was ready to say sorry, it was already too late.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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46e034a
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The difficulty, of course, with standing up to women was that it appeared to make little difference. At the end of the day,a man was no match for a woman.... The only thing to do was to try to avoid situations where women might corner you. And that was difficult, because women had a way of ensuring that you were neatly boxed in, which was exactly what had happened to him. He should have been more careful. He should have been on his guard wh..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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0fb2466
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They passed the rest of the journey in silence, not because of any awkwardness, but because neither wished conversation to break the spell that the unfolding Highland landscape was weaving about them. And what remarks were needed here? If one listens to the talk of people looking at scenes of great natural beauty, their words are often revealing. "Isn't it beautiful?" is what is most frequently said; to which the reply, 'Yes, beautiful," ad..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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fec03cf
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You simply could not help everybody; but you could at least help those who came into your life.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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c6ba3c0
|
Distant wrongs, she thought: an interesting issue in moral philosophy. Do past wrongs seem less wrong to us simply because they are less vivid?
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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7c6a059
|
Mma Ramotswe reflected on how easy it was to find oneself committed to a course of action simply because one lacked the courage to say no.
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courage
no
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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60ae1c8
|
We act out our lives to a soundtrack, thought Isabel, the music that becomes, for a spell, out favourite and is listened to again and again until it stands for the time itself. But that was about all the scripting that we achieved; the rest, for most of us, was extemporising.
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music
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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e00abce
|
Mma Ramotswe found it difficult to imagine what it would be like to have no people. There were, she knew, those who had no others in this life, who had no uncles, or aunts, or distant cousins of any degree; people who were just themselves. Many white people were like that, for some unfathomable reason; they did not seem to want to have people and were happy to be just themselves. How lonely they must be -- like spacemen deep in space, float..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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8d7a700
|
But he'll never be fully recognised, because Scots literature these days is all about complaining and moaning and being injured in one's soul.
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literature
scotland
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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50f53c2
|
Protestations of happiness could sound almost boasting to those whose happiness is incomplete. One did not boast of perfect skin to one affected by dermatitis; for the same reason, perhaps, one should take care in proclaiming one's happiness.
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happiness
unhappiness
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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459a729
|
Well, that's the important thing, isn't it, Mma? To feel happiness, and then to remember it.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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060dc8f
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It just did not make sense; unless, of course, as she had suggested, we all have a weak point, an area of intellectual or emotional vulnerability that may be quite out of keeping with out character.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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3a2f8f8
|
Perhaps if you don't know there's a gap, you don't worry about it. If you were a millipede, a , crawling along the ground would you look at the birds and worry about not having wings? Probably not.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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5225a9a
|
Dear friends, he began, there is no timetable for happiness; it moves, I think, according to rules of its own. When I was a boy I thought I'd be happy tomorrow, as a young man I thought it would be next week; last month I thought it would be never. Today, I know it is now. Each of us, I suppose has at least one person who thinks that our manifest faults are worth ignoring; I have found mine, and am content. When we are far from home we thin..
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friendship
love
scotland
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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2b7cd7c
|
We never realise how transparent we are.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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29cc20f
|
What a strange,old-fashioned thing to think. Bless you. But what other way was there of saying that you wanted only good for somebody, that you wanted the world to be kind to her, to cherish her?Only old-fashioned words would do for that.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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9f5af68
|
In bed that night, in the darkness, with the illuminated dial of her alarm clock glowing from the bedside table, she asked herself whether one could force oneself to like somebody, or whether one could merely create conditions for affection to come into existence and hope that it did, spontaneously. Open then our hearts - these words came into her mind, dredged from somewhere in her memory, from some unknown context. If one opened one's hea..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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28ad918
|
It was curious how some people had a highly developed sense of guilt, she thought, while others had none. Some people would agonise over minor slips or mistakes on their part, while others would feel quite unmoved by their own gross acts of betrayal or dishonesty.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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9be84d9
|
She had been tied to an incubus, the memory of a love that had been rejected and had had nowhere to go; she had been locked into a dead relationship and now the last dried skin of it had fallen away, like the scab on a wound, and she was free.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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2361b1e
|
I think that the measure of whether a life has been a good one is how much love there has been in that life--love both given and received.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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7daf455
|
That's the curious thing about love, isn't it? It makes very ordinary things seem special. It makes them seem so much more valuable than they really are.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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07262cb
|
And yet,' he went on, 'who talks about forgiveness these days, other than the people who come to this place, or to places like this? What politician, what public person, do we hear standing up and saying that we must forgive? The message we are more likely to hear is one of blame, of how this person or that person must be held to account for something bad that has happened. It is a message of retribution - that is all it is - a message of p..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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3d29338
|
The doctor drummed the fingers of his left hand on the edge of the table, a strange gesture which suggested, Isabel thought, an impatient temperment. Perhaps he had been obliged to listen too long to those whom he did not consider his intellectual equal, exhausted patients with long-running complaints, unable to put their views succinctly. Some doctors could become like that, she thought, just as some lawyers could; prolonged exposure to fl..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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406133a
|
In an earlier age, it might have been possible to believe that goodness would prevail over pride, but not anymore. The proud could be proud with impunity, because there was nobody to contradict him in his pride and because narcissism was no longer considered a vice. That was what the whole cult of celebrity was about, she thought; and we feted these people and fed their vanity.
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narcisissism
pride
vanity
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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94096d1
|
It was time for tea as it so often was.
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humor
|
Alexander McCall Smith |
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9ed676c
|
It was easy to be moral when that was the way you felt anyway. The hard bit about morality was making yourself feel the opposite of what you really felt.
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Alexander McCall Smith |