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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 35111f8 | He will be a small man inside," said Mma Ramotswe. "He will feel small and unimportant. That is why he needs to put ladies down, Mma. Men who are big inside never feel the need to do that." | self-esteem | Alexander McCall Smith | |
| d587371 | Most of us are quite selfish when it comes to our children, you know. We want things from them: love, the satisfaction of seeing them do well, and so on. Plenty of parents don't think just of their child's best interest. Oh, they may pay lip service to it, but they really think of themselves, of what they get from parenting. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| d304791 | Skepticism had its place, but we should not lose sight of the possibility that some beliefs were both necessary and beneficial--a belief in human goodness being a prime example of this. There were plenty of grounds to doubt human goodness; but if one ceased to believe in it, then we would lose the comfort of trust. And people needed their scraps of comfort in this world if they were to be able to deal with hardship and disappointment. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 9b2ece6 | That was what the story of Goldilocks and the three bears was all about: breach of trust. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 5e41006 | chairs are public, and one only needs to seek permission to sit in another's chair if the owner of the room is present; once you were by yourself, any chair was fair game. Except the chairs of really important people--one should not sit on a throne when left unattended in a monarch's throne room; that really was going too far. And yet who would miss such an opportunity? There could surely be little doubt but that visitors | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 494db9a | I have the luxury, I suppose, of being self-employed. But I know what it's like to apply for jobs. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 9b8b73d | We all know that it is women who take the decisions, but we have to let men think that the decisions are theirs. It is an act of kindness on the part of women. | women | Alexander McCall Smith | |
| dc348e1 | A society that undermined its teachers and their authority only dug away at its own sure foundations. | teachers | Alexander McCall Smith | |
| 1141a43 | Most people had something in their lives that was particularly important to them. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 34c1c41 | To lose your own language was like forgetting your mother, and as sad, in a way. | native-tongue | Alexander McCall Smith | |
| 5dedf84 | Usually bullies have severe mothers and bad fathers, and they are usually frightened of them. That is why they are bullies, I think. There is something wrong at home. I have found that with children in general and this applies to men as well. | upbringing | Alexander McCall Smith | |
| 96d6a4f | And the memory made her humble; for we should not forget what it is to be young and to have ideas and attitudes that may later seem so fanciful. | humility | Alexander McCall Smith | |
| 29aad59 | Mr Mandela, who had given his whole life for justice and had never once thought of himself. How unlike these people were modern politicians, who thought only of power and tricks. | leadership politicians | Alexander McCall Smith | |
| 69fb828 | When people ask for advice they very rarely want your advice and will go ahead and do what they want to do anyway, no matter what you say. That applied in every sort of case; it was a human truth of universal application, but one which most people knew little or nothing about. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| a98d9c0 | They sang that song which distills all the suffering and the hope of Africa; that song which had inspired and comforted so many, "Nkosi Sikeleli Afrika," God Bless Africa, give her life, watch over her children." | african-children | Alexander McCall Smith | |
| ec4f3e6 | But that's what the world is all about, Jamie. Stories. Stories explain everything, bring everything together. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 2b23381 | Non omnis moriar, said Horace's Odes--I shall not wholly die. Yes, and he was right. As long as people remembered, then death was not complete. Only if there were nobody at all left to remember would death be complete. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| bd62d68 | Some of my friends who play rugby talk about Murrayfield Stadium as sacred turf. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| f631f1d | Even a battlefield can be peaceful, can be a place for flowers to grow, for children to play; the memories, the sadness, are within us, not part of the world about us. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 33bd384 | What was wrong with the past?" asked Mama Ramotswe. She intended the question seriously. There were too many people who took the view that the past was bad, that we should rid ourselves of all traces of it as soon as possible. But the past was not bad; some of it may have been less than perfect-- there had been cruelties then that we had done well to get rid of-- but there had also been plenty of good things. There had been the old Botswana.. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 6bc5456 | I do not think this is so, because there is no difference between white men and black men; we are all the same; we are just people. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| fa86e76 | No, the idea of a benevolent god was very much an exception in the enormous pantheon of gods that people had invented over the course of human history. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| be4855e | Make a list of what you know, what you don't know, and what you'd like to know. Make a list of possible outcomes. Choose the outcome you think is best, then go for that! | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 6cb3744 | She had lost her baby, and where was she? She hoped that her baby was happy and would be waiting for her when she left Botswana and went to heaven. Would Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni get round to naming a wedding date before then? She hoped so, although he certainly seemed to be taking his time. Perhaps they could get married in heaven, if he left it too late. That would certainly be cheaper. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 54576c2 | Every story has two sides. So far, we've only heard one. The stupid side." LIFE" | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 4851b52 | Her eyes went to the shelves that stretched up to within a few inches of the ceiling. All four walls were covered; piles of books stood here and there, teetering, vulnerable, she judged, to the slightest footfall. "But who doesn't have a lot of unread books? It's nice, though, just to know that they're there." He" | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 7f0269e | The world is full of twenty-year-olds, she thought, all of them blind. Obed | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 2a07daf | Innocency: what a wonderful word, and different, in some indefinable way, from innocence. The difference, she thought, lay in the poetry. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 215bdb6 | But you can certainly take fifteen years off everything these days." She paused. "But you can't take height off a mountain." | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 37bdd6a | Her engagement? That is a long story." He laughed," | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| c8ec8d1 | She gazed at her husband. 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.. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 14d4b9d | Spoiler Alert (!)] There were times when you simply had to speak, or you would have your lifetime ahead to regret not speaking. But every time [Mr J.L.B. Matekoni] had tried to speak to [Mma Ramotswe] of what was in his heart, he had failed. He had already asked her to marry him and that had not been a great success. He did not have a great deal of confidence, at least with people; cars were different, of course [as he was a mechanic]. 'I a.. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 9f72707 | She should not have taken any of these people at face value. She had been naive. But this conclusion, she realized, pointed unambiguously in the direction of cynicism. And she would not be a cynic. It was better to be naive, much better. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| b268530 | Isabel smiled. She liked a conversation that went in odd directions; she liked the idea of playfulness in speech. People could be so depressingly literal. Jamie | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 87ed5b8 | That was the marvelous thing about going back to one's roots; there was no need for explanation. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 292a323 | But he was an only child and an only son, and for a mother in such a position it is not always easy to accept that another woman will eventually enter her son's life and, if all goes according to plan--the plan being that of the other woman--take him away. This common conflict, so understandable and so poignant, is played out time and time again, and almost always with the same painful result: Mother loses. It is so, of course, if Mother is.. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 13a84f1 | They paid the deposit immediately and appeared to be good tenants although they were reluctant to invite him over the threshold once they had moved in. "There is no need for you to come in," he had been told by a burly Russian who answered the door when he had called to see whether all was well. "There is nothing wrong. Everything functions. We are very happy. Goodbye." | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| f07ac87 | There were women in the sacred dance group, no doubt, and one of these might be taken aside, woman to woman, and asked to help see that he came to no harm. England was full of helpful women, Berthea was convinced: there were legions of them, all anxious to help in some way and many of them feeling quite frustrated that there were not quite enough men--for demographic reasons--in need of their help. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| cd5b1d8 | He took to wearing a Greek merchant navy captain's cap, and spending his mornings at the marina telling the staff what to do. "Sure thing, Captain Eddie," they replied. But they never did what he asked them to do, and Eddie never noticed. So everybody was content." | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 9c5323f | Sometimes wickedness prevails. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| eb46a96 | It was Lennie Marchbanks at the door. She had met him once or twice before and rather liked him; mechanics struck her as being such easy, agreeable people. And, she noticed, as a psychotherapist, one never had a mechanic for a patient. Why was that? Were they invariably balanced people, free of the neuroses that afflicted non-mechanically-minded others? | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| a672700 | something just because everybody | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| d0d9c6c | She had brought all of this on herself, and so she had, in a sense, got what she deserved. But, even so, Mma Ramotswe reminded herself, she had a soul like everyone else, and one should not crow over the defeat even of those who richly deserve to be defeated. That was dangerous, because then you yourself might get what you deserve for reveling in the misfortunes of another. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 58b6845 | every man has a map in his heart of his own country and that the heart will never allow you to forget this map. | Alexander McCall Smith |