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0e838df
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Rich people are just people," said Mma Ramotswe. "I have not met a rich person yet who isn't just the same as us. Being happy or unhappy has nothing to do with being rich."
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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137a66c
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Everybody in a village had a role to play in bringing up a child--and cherishing it--and in return that child would in due course feel responsible for everybody in that village. That is what makes life in society possible. We must love one another and help one another in our daily lives. That was the traditional African way and there was no substitute for it. None.
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it-takes-a-village
raising-children
tradition
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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dab0f42
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because it is possible to change the world, if one is determined enough, and if one sees with sufficient clarity just what it is that has to be changed.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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41c00f4
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We are all sent the dreams we yearn for, she thought; no matter how unhappy or fraught our waking world may be, we are sent dreams in which we can do the things the heart really wants us to do.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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2aa8a0b
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If you are there to staunch the tears of the world, then it does not cross your mind that you yourself may weep.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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0b727be
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like the Greeks, I suppose. They made a big thing of hoodwinking the Germans, until recently, of course. The Germans suddenly turned round and told the poor Greeks that the game was up. Oh dear. ... I can just imagine the mythical parallel. There are all the Greek gods on Mount Olympus, or wherever they liked to cavort--cavorting away and having a great time on borrowed funds from those northern gods--Thor, Odin and so on--who of course inh..
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freeloading
spoiled-adults
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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cfb734c
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Love was like rain; there could be periods of drought when it seemed that love would never return, would never make its presence felt again. In such times, the heart could harden, but then, just as droughts broke, so too could love suddenly appear, and heal just as quickly and completely as rain can heal the parched land.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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fba7fff
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Tofu wore special flame-proof pants - that was well known. "They call them fibbers' trousers," she said knowledgeably. "They're more expensive, but they stop your pants going on fire when you lie."
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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fe523a5
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And that is why we must answer her hatred with love. I can't say whether it will change her in her heart - it probably won't. But if it makes her feel even just a little bit better about herself, she will be less envious.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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457a9db
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Lists, she thought, are the stories of our lives; they give a picture of who we are and what we do every day.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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25a1cdc
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She was of traditional build herself, but her figure was largely concealed by the folds of a generously cut shift dress made out of a flecked green fabric. It was like a tent, thought Mma Ramotswe--a camouflage tent of the sort that the Botswana Defence Force might use. But I do not sit in judgement on the dresses of others, she told herself, and a tent was a practical enough garment, if that is what one felt comfortable in.
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comfort
humor
judgement
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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386f767
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I said to him that Zululand sounded fine, but that every man has a map in his heart of his own country and that the heart will never allow you to forget this map.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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415bceb
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A traditional house smelled of wood smoke, the earth, and of thatch; all good smells, the smell of life itself.
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home
smells
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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482c27f
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It had always struck her as wrong that we should judge ourselves-or, more usually, others-by single acts, as if a single snapshot said anything about what a person had been like over the whole course of his life. It could say something, of course, but only if it was typical of how that person behaved; otherwise, no, all it said that at that moment, in those particular circumstances, temptation won a local victory.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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06073d7
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Mrs. Moffat had taken her hand, for comfort, and they had sat there in silence for a while. Sometimes it seemed as if the world itself was broken, that there was something wrong with all of us, something broken in such a way that it might not be put together again; but the holding of hands, human hand in human hand, could help, could make the world seem less broken.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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697a381
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Cattle liked to stand on the roadside at night and would suddenly step out into the paths of oncoming cars, almost as if they were curious to find out what lay behind the headlights. Perhaps they thought that the headlights were torches, held by their owners, and came out to see if they brought food; perhaps they were looking for warmth and thought the lights were the sun. Perhaps they thought nothing in particular, which was always possibl..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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0a93163
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Make sure that the road is always clear for your enemy to leave'?
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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ac79b23
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She meant it, and as she spoke, she thought how strange it was that we so very rarely said complimentary things to our friends, and how easy it was to do so, and how it made the world seem a less harsh place.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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d81f15b
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You're right. Many nurses nowadays don't like doing the things that nurses used to have to do. Changing sheets and collecting bedpans - that sort of thing. Nursing has moved on, Bertie.' Bertie was puzzled. 'But if they don't do that,' he said, 'then who does? Do people have to tuck themselves into bed when they're in hospital?' Irene was amused by this and raised her eyes again. 'Dear Bertie, no, not at all. They have other people now to d..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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57b6500
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We live in a culture of complaint because everyone is always looking for things to complain about. It's all tied in with the desire to blame others for misfortunes and to get some form of compensation into the bargain.
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u-s-education
complaints
culture
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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930fa13
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She smiled at the memory. Her father, her dearest daddy, had become late many years ago now, but she still thought of him every day. Now she remembered his words about 'the look' and reminded herself that she used that expression about people, too. Some people had 'the look' and others did not. It was something to do with confidence, she thought. You had the look if you knew who you were, what you were doing, and why you were doing it. That..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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88af718
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Cat was searching for the company of one who would make her happy. Some of us did not have to look long for that person, some of us found him or her with little difficulty; others had longer to look, and had less luck.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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87db4fa
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But some of us cannot see love, she said to herself, even when it is there, right before us, asking us to invite it in.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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8b943e9
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We should all busy ourselves in being who we are, although many of us do not and spend so much time and energy being something else. We try to be what others want us to be, or what we ourselves want to be. And then we suddenly realise that our lives have shot past and we have not got round to being who we really
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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c9b0b23
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The people too seemed diminished. Her favourite aunt was still her favourite, of course, but whereas she had always been impressed by the wisdom of what her aunt said, now her words seemed no more than trite. And what was worse, she had actually felt embarrassed at some of her pronouncements, thinking that such observations would seem quaint in Gaborone. That had made her feel guilty, and she had tried to smile appreciatively at her aunt's ..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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e72940e
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So, in less elevated circles, we might toss a coin as to whether or not to go to a party, decide to go, and there meet the person whom we are to marry and spend our lives with. And if that person came, say, from New Zealand, and wanted to return, then we might find ourselves spending our life in Christchurch. Not that spending one's lifetime in Christchurch is anything less than very satisfactory--who among us would not be happy living in a..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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101c22f
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And he thought for a moment how stupid our society had become, that its nanny-like concern for risk should prevent one man helping another to take a dead friend up the steps
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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af5b16f
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People were forever digging up events that had taken place a long time ago. And what was the point in doing this if the effect was merely to poison the present? There were many wrongs in the past, but did it help to keep bringing them up and giving them a fresh airing?
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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3c1303c
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There are some people who should not be allowed on the road. Maybe they shouldn't even be allowed to walk anywhere, either. Maybe we should hang a large sign around their neck saying 'Very Dangerous', or 'No Sense', or something like that.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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2d7bb3c
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Those important brain circuits, the ones that enabled most of us to avoid saying the wrong thing, were simply not there in Martha's case; or fired in the wrong order; or were short-circuiting. In other words, Martha Drummond was an electrical problem. And understanding people as electrical problems undoubtedly helped one to tolerate them.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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44bd3e5
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Africa was full of people in need of help and there had to be a limit. You simply could not help everybody; but you could at least help those who came into your life. That principle allowed you to deal with the suffering you saw. That was your suffering. Other people would have to deal with the suffering that they, in their turn, came across.
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human-suffering
charity
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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bb87852
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Music and art and philosophy are ultimately based on the premise that this man on his tractor, and these pigs, and the swarms of bees that fertilise the crops, will all continue to do what they do.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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6aeb0ec
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She had been perfectly happy before she had met him; indeed she had been even slightly happier then. So the inscription might more accurately have read: "To remind you of how happy you've been in Edinburgh, in spite of the memories of me." But people never wrote that sort of brutally honest thing in books, largely because people very rarely have a clear idea of the effect that they have on other people, or can bring themselves to admit it. ..
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inscriptions
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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7d67257
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That was the trouble with people in general: they were surprisingly unrealistic in their expectations.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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3af7934
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Insincerity had never come easily to her, but good manners required it on occasion, even if a superhuman effort was needed.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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04dddce
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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 modernisation, 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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4ad3815
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Angus thought about this. She was right. That was why our national conversation was so bad. Courtesy had been abandoned in favour of the put-down, the attack, the calculated sound bite. What sort of national conversation was that? The answer came to him immediately: none.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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abb44ea
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That was the way the world was; it was composed of a few almost perfect people (ourselves); then there were a good many people who generally did their best but were not all that perfect (our friends and colleagues); and finally, there were a few rather nasty ones (our enemies and opponents).
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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5f20344
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Neighbours are given to us on the same basis as we are given our families. There is no element of choice involved - none at all.
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neighbors
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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de0cbac
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It was always disconcerting to meet those who had become so obsessed with a single topic that they could not see their concerns in context.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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68e44bd
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William's weekend with his friends, Geoffrey and Maggie, was turning out to be neither restful nor enjoyable. Things could have been worse, of course: there must be weekends during which the hosts' house burns to the ground, one of the guests murders another, the hostess is arrested in extradition proceedings or the guests are all poisoned by the inclusion of death's cap mushrooms in the stew. Such weekends must be very difficult indeed, no..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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6835315
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She had a great respect for books herself, and she wished that she had read more. One could never read enough. Never.
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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363f561
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And Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was at that moment on the verge of an exceptionally important thought, even though its final shape had yet to reveal itself. How much easier it was for Mma Ramotswe--she put things so well, so succinctly, so profoundly, and appeared to do this with such little effort. It was very different if one was a mechanic, and therefore not used to telling people--in the nicest possible way, of course--how to run their lives. T..
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Alexander McCall Smith |
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ca2f37a
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Although she was not a great reader, Mma Potokwane was a firm believer in the power of the book. The more books that Botswana had, in her view, the better. It would be on books that the future would be based; books and the people who knew how to use them.
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Alexander McCall Smith |