Alexander McCall Smith
Writer
1948-08-24
Alexander McCall Smith is a Zimbabwean-born writer and professor known for The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.
Books by Alexander McCall Smith
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The Private Life of Spies and The Exquisite Art of Getting Even
Stories of Espionage and Revenge
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Quotes by Alexander McCall Smith
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the world was a vale of tears— it always had been.
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I have a feeling that we've seen the dismantling of civilisation, brick by brick, and now we're looking into the void. We thought that we were liberating people from oppressive cultural circumstances, but we were, in fact, taking something away from them. We were killing off civility and concern. We were undermining all those little ties of loyalty and consideration and affection that are necessary for human flourishing. We thought that tradition was bad, that it created hidebound societies, that it held people down. But, in fact, what tradition was doing all along was affirming community and the sense that we are members of one another. Do we really love and respect one another more in the absence of tradition and manners and all the rest? Or have we merely converted one another into moral strangers - making our countries nothing more than hotels for the convenience of guests who are required only to avoid stepping on the toes of other guests?
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The recipe for each child is just for that child, even if it is the same mother and father.
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Matthew knew that phrenology was nonsense, and yet, years later, he found himself making judgments similar to those made by his father; slippery people looked slippery; they really did. And how we become like our parents! How their scorned advice - based, we felt in our superiority, on prejudiced and muddled folk wisdom - how their opinions are subsequently borne out by our own discoveries and sense of the world, one after one. And as this happens, we realise with increasing horror that proposition which we would never have entertained before: our mothers were right!
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She was made for untidy rooms and rumpled beds.
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Myth could be as sustaining as reality - sometimes even more so.
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...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 matter. Their belief anables them to ... well, to talk about the future with enthusiasm. They don't like things as they are and they are convinced that things will be much improved once they are otherwise.Well, why not? asked Matthew.I didn't say there was any reason why not. I'm just commenting on that sort of belief. The trouble is that it might make discussion difficult. If somebody believes to strongly in one particular solution to the world's problems, then it may obscure the nuances. That's all I was saying. Elspeth paused. They may not see that there are others who have a different view. You can love things in a whole lot of different ways, can't you?
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Mma Ramotswe reflected on how easy it was to find oneself committed to a course of action simply because one lacked the courage to say no.
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People don't talk about mercy very much these days— it has a rather old-fashioned ring to it. but it exists and its power is quite extraordinary
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She did not think that those who were late, or the ancestors themselves, would wish punishment upon us, no matter what our transgressions. It was far more likely that there would be love, falling like rain from above, changing the hearts of the wicked; transforming them
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The value of money is subjective, depending on age. At the age of one, one multiplies the actual sum by 145,000, making one pound seem like 145,000 pounds to a one-year-old. At seven – Bertie's age – the multiplier is 24, so that five pounds seems like 120 pounds. At the age of twenty four, five pounds is five pounds; at forty five it is divided by 5, so that it seems like one pound and one pound seems like twenty pence. (All figures courtesy of Scottish Government Advice Leaflet: Handling your Money.)
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She watched him take the trumpet from its case and fit the mouthpiece. She watched as he raised it to his lips and then, so suddenly, from that tiny cup of metal against his flesh, the sound would burst out like a glorious, brilliant knife dividing the air. And the little room would reverberate and the flies, jolted out of their torpor, would buzz round and round as if riding the swirling notes.
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We act out our lives to a soundtrack, thought Isabel, the music that becomes, for a spell, out favourite and is listened to again and again until it stands for the time itself. But that was about all the scripting that we achieved; the rest, for most of us, was extemporising.
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He evidently did not care that they were in full view of a cluster of dog-owners walking their dogs. He stopped and took her in his arms, kissing her passionately and urgently.
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She hoped that her baby was happy and would be waiting for her when she herself 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.
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If she was going to remain an engaged lady, then she would make the most of it, and one of the ways to do this would be to enjoy her free time.
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Then there was Mr Mandela. Everybody knew about Mr Mandela and how he had forgiven those who had imprisoned him. They had taken away years and years of his life simply because he wanted justice. They had set him to work in a quarry and his eyes had been permanently damaged by the rock dust. But at last, when he had walked out of the prison on that breathless, luminous day, he had said nothing about revenge or even retribution. He had said that there were more important things to do than to complain about the past, and in time he had shown that he meant this by hundreds of acts of kindness towards those who had treated him so badly. That was the real African way, the tradition that was closest to the heart of Africa. We are all children of Africa, and none of us is better or more important than the other. This is what Africa could say to the world: it could remind it what it is to be human.
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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.
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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.
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Human history seems to me to be one long story of people sweeping down— or up, I suppose— replacing other people in the process.
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