Quotes from Alexander McCall Smith

Not forgiving was like scratching at a sore to keep the healing scab from forming.

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

All of us had hard choices, she thought; the greatest of us and the least of us, and we had to feel our way through them and accept that there would sometimes be regrets.

If more women were in power, they wouldn't let wars break out," she said. "Women can't be bothered with all this fighting. We see war for what it is—a matter of broken bodies and crying mothers.

Exactement," said Chloe. "And in view of this relationship I feel that I can speak to you directly—without sautéeing my words." "Mincing," said Paul. "Perhaps, but mince is so rare these days—metaphors must keep up to date." She paused. "Does anybody eat mince any longer, Paul? You should know, I suppose.

Human history seems to me to be one long story of people sweeping down—or up, I suppose—replacing other people in the process.

Dr. Svensson had once counselled him to think of the things you're doing rather than the things you did.

Dogs can read signals -- look at sheepdogs; they understand hand movements for left and right. Dogs are no fools, you know. He paused. Well, some are. Some dogs are truly stupid, Ulf.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow…There must be reasons why the leaves decay. (From Auden's If I Could Tell You

Cat was searching for the company of one who would make her happy. Some of us did not have to look long for that person, some of us found him or her with little difficulty; others had longer to look, and had less luck.

There were plenty of people who did not really believe in God, but who wanted to believe in him, and said that they did. Some people said that these people were foolish, that they were hypocritical, but Mma Ramotswe was not so sure about that. If something, or somebody, could help you to get through life, to lead a life that was good and purposeful, did it matter all that much if that thing or that person did not exist? She thought it did not—not in the slightest bit. BY

The husband should say to the reverend: 'And I promise not to defy my wife.

However she redefined herself, that part of one that made for the core of the self, that part that we think of as the ultimate, inner being—that was ineradicable Scottish. That part spoke with a Scottish voice; that part looked out through Scottish eyes; and it was that part that now welled within her as she gazed out through the window of the descending plane and saw below her the rolling Borders hills…

For that, surely, is what friendship is all about–about the giving of love and the assurance of love.

she imagined what it would be like to live with somebody who had secrets. Instead of a comfortable atmosphere of trust there would be a nagging insecurity, like a corrosive crust, eating away at the fabric of the marriage. Doubts would spread like weeds, making it impossible to relax, spoiling everything.

Make a list of what you know, what you don't know, and what you'd like to know. Make a list of possible outcomes. Choose the outcome you think is best, then go for that!

there was always a part of the human mind that was prepared to entertain such notions, particularly at night, in the world of shadows, when there were sounds that one could not understand and when each one of us was in some sense alone.

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

He would sit down and consider the situation carefully. Not only did this help to identify the solution to the problem, but it also gave him the opportunity to remind himself that things were not really as bad as they seemed; it was all a question of perspective. Sitting down and looking up at the sky for a few minutes--not at any particular part of the sky, but just at the sky in general--at the vast, dizzying, empty sky of Botswana, cut human problems down to size.

If you are there to staunch the tears of the world, then it does not cross your mind that you yourself may weep.

We should all busy ourselves in being who we are, although many of us do not and spend so much time and energy being something else. We try to be what others want us to be, or what we ourselves want to be. And then we suddenly realise that our lives have shot past and we have not got round to being who we really

She was, he reflected, one of his closest friends, in a rather curious, slightly old-fashioned way.

And the difference was this, she mused: those who are twenty don't know what it is like to be forty, whereas those who are forty know what it is like to be twenty. It was a bit like discussing a foreign country with somebody who has never been there. They are prepared to listen, but it's not quite real for them.

Although she was not a great reader, Mma Potokwane was a firm believer in the power of the book. The more books that Botswana had, in her view, the better. It would be on books that the future would be based; books and the people who knew how to use them.