Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
More about Alexander McCall Smith
Alexander McCall Smith Quotes
62 Sourced Quotes
Source
Report...
We don't forget.... Our heads may be small, but they are as full of memories as the sky may sometimes be full of swarming bees, thousands and thousands of memories, of smells, of places, of little things that happened to us and which came back, unexpectedly, to remind us who we are.
Alexander McCall Smith
Source
Report...
Daughters could survive a powerful mother, but boys found it almost impossible. Such boys were often severely damaged and spent the rest of their lives running away from their mothers, or from anybody who remotely reminded them of their mothers; either that, or they became their mothers, in a desperate, misguided act of psychological self defence.
Alexander McCall Smith
Source
Report...
The people with the strong, brave exteriors are just as weak and vulnerable as the rest of us. And of course they never admit to their childish practices, their moments of weakness or absurdity, and then the rest of us think that's how it should be.
Alexander McCall Smith
Source
Report...
Most people want nothing to happen. That is the problem with governments these days. They want to do things all the time; they are always very busy thinking of what things they can do next. That is not what people want. People want to be left alone to look after their cattle.
Alexander McCall Smith
Source
Report...
The telling of a story, like virtually everything in this life, was always made all the easier by a cup of tea.
Alexander McCall Smith
Source
Report...
Be content with who you are and where you are, and do whatever you can do to bring to others such contentment, and joy, and understanding that you have managed to find yourself.
Alexander McCall Smith
Source
Report...
When we love others, we naturally want to talk about them, we want to show them off, like emotional trophies. We invest them with a power to do to others what they do to us; a vain hope, as the lovers of others are rarely of much interest to us. But we listen in patience, as friends must, and as Isabel now did, refraining from comment, other than to encourage the release of the story and the attendant confession of human frailty and hope.
Alexander McCall Smith
Source
Report...
Pat looked up at the cornice. "I'm on a gap year," she said, and added, because truth required it after all: "It's my second gap year, actually." Bruce stared at her, and then burst out laughing. "Your second gap year?" Pat nodded. She felt miserable. Everybody said that. Everybody said that because they had no idea of what had happened. "My first one was a disaster," she said. "So I started again."
Alexander McCall Smith
Source
Report...
The woman shook her head. "Not easy," she said. "I believe that we have much less free will than we think. Quite frankly, we delude ourselves if we think that we are completely free. We aren't. And that means if dear Bruce must have rather a lot of girlfriends, then there's not very much he can do about it." Pat said nothing. Bruce had said nothing about the neighbours, and perhaps this was the reason.
Alexander McCall Smith
Source
Report...
The thought of Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni nursing secret, unfulfilled ambitions saddened Mma Ramotswe, as did the thought of people wanting something very much indeed and not getting the thing they yearned for. When we dismiss or deny the hopes of others, she thought, we forget that they, like us, have only one chance in this life.
Alexander McCall Smith
Source
Report...
The sentiment sounded trite, but then didn't most good sentiments sound trite? It was hard to make goodness – and good people – sound interesting. Yet the good were worthy of note, of course, because they battled and that battle was a great story, whereas the evil were evil because of moral laziness, or weakness, and that was ultimately a dull and uninteresting affair.
Alexander McCall Smith
Source
Report...
But we make such mistakes all the time, all through our lives. Wisdom, I suppose, is seeing this and acting upon it before it is too late. But it is often too late, isn't it? – and those things that we should have said are unsaid, and remain unsaid for ever.
Alexander McCall Smith
1
2
3
Quote of the day
Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
William James
Alexander McCall Smith
Creative Commons
Born:
August 24, 1948
(age 75)
Bio:
R. Alexander "Sandy" McCall Smith is a British writer and Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh.
Known for:
44 Scotland Street (2004)
Tears of the Giraffe (2000)
Corduroy Mansions (2009)
The Sunday Philosophy Club (2004)
Portuguese Irregular Verbs (1997)
Most used words:
people
life
love
thought
time
course
year
mothers
shoes
loved
friends
wrong
pat
ramotswe
bruce
Alexander McCall Smith on Wikipedia
Alexander McCall Smith on Twitter
Suggest an edit or a new quote
Alexander McCall Smith Quotes
Alexander McCall Smith Short Quotes
British Novelist Quotes
Novelist Quotes
20th-century Novelist Quotes
Related People
W. H. Auden
American Poet
Ian Rankin
Scottish Novelist
Featured Authors
Lists
Predictions that didn't happen
If it's on the Internet it must be true
Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words)
Picture Quotes
Confucius
Philip James Bailey
Eleanor Roosevelt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Popular Topics
life
love
nature
time
god
power
human
mind
work
art
heart
thought
men
day
×
Lib Quotes