Quotes from Alexander McCall Smith

You're not angry, Mma?" She shook her head. What was the point of anger? There were occasions when Mma Ramotswe, like all of us, could feel angry, but they were few—and they never lasted long. Anger, Obed Ramotswe had explained to her once, is no more than a salt that we rub into our wounds. She had never forgotten that—along with the things he said about cattle, and Botswana, and the behaviour of the rains.

Children, like cats, made a house into a home, and the echoes of their presence lingered.

Afghanistan. And then there's Ã¢â'¬Â¦Ã¢â'¬Â He consulted the letter again. "Michael Longley, the poet—he'll be there too. And there are lots of others." Irene looked thoughtful. "It starts in two days' time," said Stuart. "It's a bit rushed, but Ã¢â'¬Â¦

they were two people thrown together on a journey, who found themselves sharing the same railway compartment and becoming resigned to each other's company.

And then," Mma Potokwane continued, "you have a successful business. You have the two children. You have your Zebra Drive home. You have so much, Mma." She looked at her friend with a touch of reproach. "You have nothing further to achieve, Mma. Nothing.

I'm taking on another person's memories, another person's family, another person's life. Love obscured all of that because if it did not, then nobody would marry at all, and there had to be marriage, didn't there, if people wanted to continue, have children, keep everything going…

your jaw would hit the table in astonishment.

of being linked with each other, we have every temptation to be selfish and unmoved by others and by their plight. Our towns, our cities, our places become no more than hotels, with all that lack of intimacy that is a feature of hotels – strangers under one roof, no more. Well, we should not be strangers to one another. We

Be gentle...Many of the people who will come to see you are injured in spirit. They need to talk about things that have hurt them, or about things that they have done. Do not sit in judgement on them, but listen. Just listen.

of day it was or how we were feeling, they were

her daddy, as she called him, and of whom she thought at some point every day, every single day, and whom she had loved with all her heart.

It is always the same, Mma Makutsi—every time. Exactly the same. So now I know what that guy says without needing to read his book." This was heresy, and for a few moments Mma Makutsi was almost too shocked to respond.

Do you know what makes for a good still life? I'll tell you: it's when the painter manages to convey a sense that something is about to happen. The objects in the painting all look immobile, but as you contemplate them you begin to feel that at any moment there could be movement. Somebody might come into the room. A storm might blow up outside. The wind will move the curtains. All of these things might happen.

She used the expression that the Batswana preferred: to become late. There was human sympathy here; to be dead is to be nothing, to be finished. The expression is far too final, too disruptive of the bonds that bind us to one another, bonds that survive the demise of one person. A late father is still your father, even though he is not there; a dead father sounds as if he has nothing further to do--he is finished.

This tea is for people who really appreciate tea. Ordinary tea is for anyone.

Cyberspace is a big country. You can do just about anything anywhere.

It is sometimes easier to be happy if you don't know everything.

Things I'll never do. You would not feel uncomfortable reading that list, as you will have already admitted that these are things you do not want to do—and will not do.

we don't see our parents as people. Your daddy was also a man—a very good man too—but he was a man.

They were also shoes that would give the wearer confidence: a person could speak with authority in such shoes.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni warmed to the theme. "And you could have yet another list," he said. "Things that other people should do, but don't seem to be doing." Mma Ramotswe thought for a while. "That could be a very long list," she said. "There are many people who do not do what they should be doing.

Mother was right, you know. It's an odd thing, isn't it: you never want your mother to be right, but the older you get, the more right you realise your mother was. All those things that mothers say, all those annoying things, turn out to be right.

products of soulless machines and relentless globalization…

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.