Quotes from Alexander McCall Smith

Of course you could not allow yourself to think too much about these issues. One had to get on and to attend to the day-to-day business of living.

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.

How often have I noticed or, indeed, listened to him? We talk, but do I actually listen, or is our conversation mainly a question of my waiting for him to stop and for it to be my turn to say something? For how many of us is that what conversation means - the setting up of our lines?

Like ageism and sexism, lookism was everywhere, resulting in the good-looking getting the best jobs, winning all the plaudits, being let off the most parking tickets by soft-hearted traffic wardens; being generally favoured.

it was difficult to think what to do, and, as she often did in such circumstances, Mma Ramotswe decided that the best thing to do would be to go shopping.

Love] may bring surprise, joy, despair and, occasionally, perfect happiness.

What attracted men? Good looks? Certainly if a girl was pretty then she tended to get the attention of men; that was beyond any doubt at all. But it was not just prettiness that mattered, because there were many girls who did not look anything special but who seemed to find no difficulty in making men notice them. These girls dressed in a very careful way; they knew which colours appealed to men (red, and other bright colours; men were like cattle in that respect) [...]

It was a pink sort of smell- a smell that seemed to get bigger as you smelled it and then burst, just like the popping of a bubble

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. That's how most people thought. Precious

Lists, she thought, are the stories of our lives; they give a picture of who we are and what we do every day.

French philosophers had been able to admire Mao and his works because they did not have to live in China at the time.

It's just that I think people should be…well, a bit more honest. We don't like being told half-truths. Or being lied to…People can tell, you know. They know when they're being lied to. Politicians find that out – eventually.

How can you have a peaceful country where one half of the population thinks that the other is wrong, or hostile, or determined to do them down? What better recipe for unhappiness was there than that?

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.

She did not have strong views on politics. She did not like the confrontational nature of much political discussion; why could people not argue politely, she wondered, taking into account the views of others and accepting that people might differ with one another in perfectly good faith?

A nudist? In Edinburgh? Does he realise what parallel we're on?

What else do you need in life, Mma? You have a fine husband—which is one of the most important things that anybody can have.

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.

Pickled onions had nothing to do with moral imagination, but were important in their own quiet, vinegary way, Isabel supposed.

It was a warm evening, at least by the standards applied in Scotland, where summer is sometimes no more than a promise, an aspiration

He agreed with David Hockney that an artist really had to be able to draw before anything else could be achieved.

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.

And God was here anyway, before the missionaries came. We called him by a different name, then, and he did not live over at the Jews' place; he lived here in Africa, in the rocks, in the sky, in places where we knew he liked to be.

Leave them," said Isabel. "Jamie can iron them himself. It's very therapeutic for men to iron. Therapeutic for women, that is.