Quotes from Alexander McCall Smith

Sociopaths are attracted to politics because the see it as a sphere in which you can be ruthless and step all over people. That fact that some politicians can tell such awful lies is another example of sociopathy. Sociopaths lie—they see nothing wrong with it.

There was nothing more unattractive than narcissism, she thought: nothing could transform beauty into a cloying, unattractive quality than that self-conscious appreciation of self.

Talking about pumpkins doesn't make them grow.

a drive in the country, an expedition to a shoe shop a quiet cup of tea under a cloudless sky; each of us had something that made it easier to continue in a world that sometimes, just sometimes, was not as we might wish it to be.

the thought crossed her mind that a bed was really a very strange thing-a human nest, really, where our human fragility made its nightly demands for comfort and cosseting

We can be confident in our dealings with the world when what the world sees is the outer person, with all the outer person's defences: the intimacy of a love affair is a different matter altogether. And who might not feel just the slightest bit insecure under the gaze of a lover--a gaze which falls on birthmarks, on blemishes physical and psychological, on our imperfections and impatience, on our human vulnerability?

Myth could be as sustaining as reality - sometimes even more so.

International business, once allowed to stalk uncontrolled, killed the local, the small, the quirky.

If you take God out of it, then right and justice become small, human things. And weak things too.

It was curious how some people had a highly developed sense of guilt, she thought, while others had none. Some people would agonise over minor slips or mistakes on their part, while others would feel quite unmoved by their own gross acts of betrayal or dishonesty.

There was no need for words, for there are times when words can only hint at what the heart would wish to say.

Many waters cannot quench love: the anthem's setting remained in her ears, repeating itself; a tune so powerful that it might gird one against the disappointments of life, rather than make one aware that our attempts to subdue the pain of unrequited love - of impossible love, of love that we are best to put away and not to think about - tended not to work, and only made the wounds of love more painful.

We all had to say goodbye, sooner or later, to those we love--or they had to say goodbye to us. Those were the only two possibilities that this world allowed. But no matter how much we tried to face up to it, it never became easier.

No plaque reminds the passer-by of these glories, although there should be one; for those who invent biscuits bring great pleasure to many.

We are born to talk to other people, ... we are born to be sociable and to sit together with others in the shade of the acacia tree and talk about things that happened the day before. We were not born to sit in kitchens by ourselves, with nobody to chat to. Mma Ramotswe

Look at those clouds, said Jamie, gazing up at the sky. Look at them. Yes, said Isabel. They're very beautiful, aren't they? Clouds are very beautiful and yet so often we fail to appreciate them properly. We should do that. We should look at them and think about how lucky we are to have them. Look at the shape of the clouds, she said. What do you see in those beautiful clouds, Jamie? I see you, he said.

These sociopaths,' he said. 'What do they feel like? Inside?' Isabel smiled. 'Unmoved,' she said. 'They feel unmoved. Look at a cat when it does something wrong. It looks quite unmoved. Cats are sociopaths, you see. It's their natural state.

Professor Dr Moritz-Maria Von Igelfeld often reflected on how fortunate he was to be exactly who he was, and nobody else. When one paused to think who one might have been had the accident of birth not happened precisely as it did, then, well, one could be quite frankly appalled.

Distant wrongs, she thought: an interesting issue in moral philosophy. Do past wrongs seem less wrong to us simply because they are less vivid?

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.

We can't have moral obligations to every single person in this world. We have moral obligations to those who we come up against, who enter into our moral space, so to speak. That means neighbors, people we deal with, and so on.

We like to think that we plan what happens to us, but it is chance, surely, that lies behind so many of the great events of our lives -- the meeting with the person with whom we are destined to spend the rest of our days, the receiving of a piece of advice whic influences our choice of career, the spotting of a particular house for sale; all of these may be put down to pur chance, and yet they govern how our lives work out and how happy--or unhappy--we were going to be.

We might more of us say these words to others, and more frequently--how healing that would prove to be. Look, we've had our differences, but how about some chocolate? Or: I'm so sorry: how about some chocolate? Or simply, Great to see you! How about some chocolate?

Well, that's the important thing, isn't it, Mma? To feel happiness, and then to remember it.