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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| b1a1605 | He shows the most amazing brass neck," she said." | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 7787e71 | People were only too ready to believe things that were manifestly untrue. When it came to remarks that portrayed others in a bad light, people were happy to believe things that showed others to be weak or flawed in some way: we believed that of them because it made us feel better; it was as simple as that. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| c4b5914 | People punish themselves--sometimes for years. But it's not always necessary. Forgiveness allows everybody to start again, not to be burdened with a whole lot of old business. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 30899f8 | a word, as often happens, can be like a musical worm in the mind and invite repetition. But | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 6ac851f | Arbroath | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 3b92444 | That's precisely what I'm saying: in order to become better people, we must practise," Isabel said." | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 1605451 | people are very slow to say sorry. I | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 5eb23a2 | She is a good housemother, that one," said Mma Ramotswe. Mma Potokwane agreed. "Whenever I hear people say that the country is going to the dogs--and there are such people, you know, Mma..." | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| c62237a | Could you say that your business had expanded if it had gone from owning one teapot to two? Somehow | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 5970a9c | of the large numbers of people who applied for jobs, and she wondered how employers managed to select from such a wide field. Was everyone interviewed? And even if that happened, how did one distinguish one applicant from another when they all probably had roughly the same qualifications? | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| cc32c2d | I think this bandage is not needed," said Mma Ramotswe, bending down to remove it. "Hospitals feel they have to put a bandage on anybody who goes there--just in case. Sometimes you get a bandage even if you are just visiting somebody." | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| b922e85 | These days people seemed to suggest that you should talk about everything, even those things that people never talked about in the past, but did this make life any easier? She was not sure. In fact, she thought there were occasions on which talking about distressing things merely kept those things alive, whereas not talking about them, consigning them to the past, forgetting them, allowed one to think about things that were positive, things.. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 82ac316 | that was enough to make her blush with shame for the mere fact that Las Vegas existed. There | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| cd554ad | Perhaps this was a concomitant of freedom: if people were free, then some of them, at least, would be free of the constraints of good taste. Perhaps | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 49eca9a | Violins sang, brass crowed, while bassoons, she felt, rumbled according to a Richter scale all of their own. Charlie | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| a37c9f0 | That is important," said Mma Makutsi from behind her desk. "One does not want a lady who talks too much." | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 5132824 | YOU DO NOT CHANGE PEOPLE BY SHOUTING AT THEM | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| dc8a3c6 | He had very few criticisms to make of Precious Ramotswe, his wife and founder of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, but if one were to make a list of her faults--which would be a minuscule document, barely visible, indeed, to the naked eye--one would perhaps have to include a tendency (only a slight tendency, of course) to claim that things that she happened to believe were well known. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 6c02524 | One of the drawbacks to being a philosopher was that you became aware of what you should not do, and | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 005c0d3 | But I do like the idea of household gods--shall we get some? A set of little statues and bring the boys up to believe in them?" "I hope they believe in something," said Elspeth. 'Imagaine believing in nothing at all--not even in love, or justice, or any of the things that can make people passionate." "Such as a country?" Elspeth thought about this. "I suppose there are lots of people who believe in Scotland. Or the European Union, for that .. | opinions passion | Alexander McCall Smith | |
| 021ed67 | forgiveness of others allows us to adjust our feelings towards the past, assuages our anger. Our | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 86e8c8c | There are indeed ducks in Blackford Pond." "On it," muttered Isabel. "What?" "On the pond. There are ducks on the pond. There are fish in it." Even as she spoke, Isabel had no idea why she was being so pedantic, and" | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 9981fa3 | Do not complain about your life. Do not blame others for things that you have brought upon yourself. Be content with who you are and where you are, and do whatever you can do to bring to others such contentment, and joy, and understanding that you have managed to find yourself. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 3dddd67 | Remember that, she said to herself; remember that in your dealings with others--they may be dying. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 51f7c94 | There was corruption at every turn, and those who stood for honesty and integrity were more and more vulnerable, more and more isolated amongst the hordes of people who simply had no moral sense. And | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 9059139 | It was a good thing to be an African. There were terrible things that happened in Africa, things that brought shame and despair when one thought about them, but that was not all there was in Africa. However great the suffering of the people of Africa, however harrowing the cruelty and chaos brought about by soldiers--small boys with guns, really--there was still so much in Africa from which one could take real pride. There was the kindness,.. | kindness suffering | Alexander McCall Smith | |
| fd0f908 | The ordinary people of Africa tended not to have room in their hearts for hatred. They were sometimes foolish, like people anywhere, but they did not bear grudges, as Mr Mandela had shown the world. | humanity | Alexander McCall Smith | |
| 602fbe8 | especially when it came to his triumphant denunciations of his political enemies, each of whom, she suspected, were only too relieved that it was him rather than they who had been caught. She | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 175aac2 | The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, because if you left it to them to work out for themselves, they would never bother. They would just find out what was best for them, and then they would call that the right thing. | philosophical right-and-wrong | Alexander McCall Smith | |
| 6140287 | People with something to hide wore sunglasses indoors. They were the ones you had to watch very carefully. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| da8208c | Very..." She left the word hanging. Very unfinished, thought Isabel. The woman finished her sentence. "Very beautiful." Oh, really! thought Isabel. The verdict from others was much the same. Oh well, thought Isabel. Perhaps I'm not sufficiently used to the language he's using. Music is not an international language, she thought, no matter how frequently that claim is made; some words of the language may be the same, but not all, and one nee.. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 92602b4 | You can lose a piece of plain bread and not think twice about it, but when you lose one spread thickly with strawberry jam it's an altogether more serious matter. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 44bcbfd | But just because somebody has lots of sweets does not mean that he has stolen them. One thing, you see, does not always lead to another. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 5c6e39d | Although she had only started being a detective, Precious was well aware that you had to be able to show people something if you wanted them to believe it. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 706ed01 | By comparison with such lives, our days were inconsequential indeed, and yet even though our canvas was small, still we could paint a masterpiece--as long as we were content for it to be a miniature. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 9ff0ab5 | suddenly realised that if he felt that he had achieved nothing it was because he had failed to cherish what he had in fact done. He had filled his days doing ordinary, unexceptional things and thought nothing of them. But they were far from nothing: | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 6865898 | On the wall of this yard there was the wording, painted in high letters: Reliable Autos. We get you there. "Get you where?" asked Fanwell. Chobie smiled. "Where you want to get. That's where everybody's heading, after all. To where they want to get." | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 10bb429 | The sound of the kettle boiling was in itself the sound of normality, of reason, the sound of a fight back against the sadness of things. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 38c9015 | Do not take on a traditionally built person unless you are prepared for a heavyweight bout. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| a6bd855 | Some genealogies claimed to be able to trace the Maclean ancestry even further back, going as far as Julius Caesar, and, in some cases, admittedly more tendentiously, to the ancient Celtic god of the sun. | Alexander McCall Smith | ||
| 5f81308 | It was hard to disappear completely in Botswana, where there were fewer than two million people and where people had a healthy curiosity as to who was who and where people had come from. It was very difficult to be anonymous, even in Gaborone, as there would always be neighbours who would want to know exactly what one was doing and who one's people had been. | neighbors | Alexander McCall Smith | |
| a4aa3bc | The shoes themselves were light green, with lowish heels (which were very important for comfort and walking; high heels were always a temptation, but, like all temptations, one paid for them later). | shoes temptation | Alexander McCall Smith | |
| bc462ba | She believed in getting as much use as possible from everything, and thought that as long as machinery, or anything else, could be cajoled into operation, it should be kept; to do otherwise, she thought, was wasteful. | repair reuse | Alexander McCall Smith | |
| 4b36f84 | The recipe for each child is just for that child, even if it is the same mother and father. | Alexander McCall Smith |