Quotes from Alexander McCall Smith

She'll be very appreciative," said the superior officer. "She watches him whenever he's on television. She really is a huge fan." Ulf closed his eyes. He saw the professor being pursued by a group of his fans, the huge ones struggling to keep up with the thinner, more lithe fans, dropping exhausted and disappointed

there is always a very precise moment for words like that to be uttered; then it passes and it is too late. Just as the moment for words like sorry or I love you is a brief one, fleeting and irreplaceable; a moment of liminality, perhaps.

There was that quality of sensitivity, that look in his eyes that told her, and everybody else who cared to look for it, that he understood , but, at the same time, that he was elsewhere.

matter to the test. Starting with a simple command—one that most dogs were capable of understanding and acting upon, sit—he stood in front of Martin, said sit in such a way that the position of his lips was exaggerated, and then pressed firmly on Martin's hindquarters, forcing them down. Martin looked up at his owner in mute incomprehension.

He thought that perhaps she had been thinking the same thing, which was unlikely, but a nice thought anyway—that two people who liked one another should think the same thought at the same time.

At the end of the story, Dr Moffat shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid that the only conclusion we can reach is that this Dr Lubega is substituting a cheap generic for a costly drug but charging his patients the full cost." "And that would harm them?" she asked. "It could," said Dr Moffat. "Some of the generics are all right, but others do not necessarily do what they're meant to.

A kind word, a word of encouragement or admiration, could shift the heaviest, most recalcitrant baggage.

But that was then and this was now, when it seemed that people were different. They put up with less; they were more impatient than earlier generations. Why? Because now we were used to getting what we wanted – and getting it quickly, whether it was something ordered online, or happiness itself .

Forgiveness was never easy, but Mma Ramotswe believed in it because she knew that without forgiveness we cluttered our lives with old business. Not forgiving was like scratching at a sore to keep the healing scab from forming.

I watched him walk down the path from the house and then off on to the dusty road. People do that in India. When they reach a certain time of life, they sometimes just walk off and become holy men and never come back.That is what my father did

There are plenty of people who might prefer to go sideways. What about them? How are we to inspire them?

At the end of the story, Dr Moffat shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid that the only conclusion we can reach is that this Dr Lubega is substituting a cheap generic for a costly drug but charging his patients the full cost." "And that would harm them?" she asked. "It could," said Dr Moffat. "Some of the generics are all right, but others do not necessarily do what they're meant to. There's an issue of purity, you see.

I heard him say that he knew that he had been very stupid and that he would not be stupid again. Those were his very words, Mma, and I wrote them down on a piece of paper which we can keep in the office here and take out and wave at him some time in the future if we need to do so.

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

believe in reforming things that need to be reformed. I believe in social goods. I believe that the most stable and probably the most reasonable position on anything is probably to be found in the centre. I believe in compromise and sharing and making sure that everybody has a chance. I believe that we should listen to one another and accept that those with whom we may disagree have their own view of the good and should be respected. I believe in not insulting those from whom we differ.

You never know whom you're going to marry. But what you really want is to marry somebody who's kind. That's the most important thing, you know. They don't have to be good looking or rich or anything like that - but they have to be kind.

Hampus looked up again. Ulf saw that tears had appeared in his eyes. He wanted to reach forward and wipe them away, but that was not for a detective to do.

Sometimes people simply did not want to find things out. Nobody was missing, nobody was cheating on their wives, nobody was embezzling. At such times, a private detective may as well hand a closed sign on the office door and go plant melons.

My old friend," he began, "is down below, his face we'll see no more, for what he thought was H2O was H2SO4

It was perfectly possible to portray scientific knowledge as socially determined – and therefore not true in any real sense – when one was safe on the ground in Paris; but would you ask the same question in a jet aircraft at thirty-five thousand feet, when that same knowledge underpinned the very engineering that was keeping one up in the air?

Mr J. L. B. Matekoni thought that she was right. He was not a man with a very sophisticated theology, and there were times when he had his serious doubts. But when all was said and done he thought that there was something beyond us, something other than the human, and that if you closed your eyes and thought about this thing long enough you could hear its voice within you. That was enough for him.

Do not think that in any case where there are two competing arguments one of them has to be right: both can be wrong.

People who looked after animals were by and large kind people; they simply practised kindness, unlike those who made much of it. Thus, thought Isabel, are virtues best cultivated—in discretion and silence, away from the gaze of others, known only to those who act virtuously and to those who benefit from what is done.

love was a form of blindness that closed the eyes to the most glaring faults. You could love a murderer, and simply not believe that your lover would do so much as crush a tick, let alone kill somebody. There would be no point trying to dissuade her.