Alexander McCall Smith Quotes (55 quotes)

Works

The Careful Use of Compliments

Alexander McCall Smith

Espresso Tales

Alexander McCall Smith

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Alexander McCall Smith

The Careful Use of Compliments

Alexander McCall Smith

Espresso Tales

Alexander McCall Smith

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Alexander McCall Smith

Alexander McCall Smith: 55 quotes1 like

Famous Alexander McCall Smith Quotes

“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 book The Miracle at Speedy Motors

Source: The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“These men were like leeches; they sucked away at the goodness of a woman's heart until it was dry and all her love had been used up. That took a long time, he knew, because women seemed to have vast reservoirs of goodness in them”

Alexander McCall Smith The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Source: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

“We find what we are looking for in life, her father had once said to her, which was true—if you look for happiness, you will see it; if you look for distrust and envy and hatred—all those things—you will find those too.”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Full Cupboard of Life

Source: The Full Cupboard of Life

“If your ceiling should fall down, then you have lost a room, but gained a courtyard. Think of it that way.”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Right Attitude to Rain

Source: The Right Attitude to Rain

“Mma Ramotswe sighed. 'We are all tempted, Mma. We are all tempted when it comes to cake.'

That is true,' said Mma Potokwane sadly. 'There are many temptations in this life, but cake is probably one of the biggest of them.”

Alexander McCall Smith In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

Source: In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

“There is room in history for all of us.”

Alexander McCall Smith

Alexander McCall Smith Quotes about people

“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 The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Source: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

“But don't we often lie to people we love, or not tell them things, precisely because we love them?”

Alexander McCall Smith book Friends, Lovers, Chocolate

Source: Friends, Lovers, Chocolate

“That of all people, it should be him; that took her aback. That the heart should settle on somebody like him; that surprised her. But she was so certain about it, so certain.”

Alexander McCall Smith

Source: Dream Angus: The Celtic God of Dreams

“A life without stories would be no life at all. And stories bound us, did they not, one to another, the living to the dead, people to animals, people to the land?”

Alexander McCall Smith In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

Source: In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

“These tests are designed to exclude others from the discourse - just as the word discourse is itself designed to do. These words are intended to say to people: this is a group thing. If you don't understand what we're talking about, you're not a member of the group. So, if you call this place the Canny Man's it shows that you belong, that you know what's what in Edinburgh. And that, you know, is what everybody wants, underneath. We want to belong.”

Alexander McCall Smith book Espresso Tales

Espresso Tales, chapter 1.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“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

Love Over Scotland, chapter 17.
The 44 Scotland Street series

Alexander McCall Smith Quotes about thinking

“We all know that it is women who make the decisions, but we have to let men think that the decisions are theirs. It is an act of kindness on the part of women.”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Full Cupboard of Life

Source: The Full Cupboard of Life

“It’s very important to be able to accept things, you know. Gracious acceptance is an art – an art which most of never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder than giving.”

Alexander McCall Smith

Love Over Scotland, chapter 112.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“We think the world is ours forever, but we are little more than squatters.”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Careful Use of Compliments

The Careful Use of Compliments, chapter 1.
The Sunday Philosophy Club series

“The maid glanced at her employer. "Oh, you have heard of me," she said. "I am glad that he speaks of me. I would not like to think that nobody speaks of me." "No," said Mma Ramotswe. "It is better to be spoken of than not to be spoken of. Except sometimes, that is."”

Alexander McCall Smith book Tears of the Giraffe

Tears of the Giraffe, chapter 1.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series

“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 book 44 Scotland Street

44 Scotland Street, chapter 2.
The 44 Scotland Street series

Alexander McCall Smith: Trending quotes

“It is sometimes easier to be happy if you don't know everything.”

Alexander McCall Smith book Morality for Beautiful Girls

Source: Morality for Beautiful Girls

“She was made for untidy rooms and rumpled beds.”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Sunday Philosophy Club

Source: The Sunday Philosophy Club

“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 book The Double Comfort Safari Club

Source: The Double Comfort Safari Club

Alexander McCall Smith Quotes

“Do not act meanly, do not be unkind, because the time for setting things right may pass before your heart changes course.
Isabel Dalhousie”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Careful Use of Compliments

Source: The Careful Use of Compliments

“every man has a map in his heart of his own country and that the heart will never allow you to forget this map. (p. 18)”

Alexander McCall Smith The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Source: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

“… great things may come from moments of nothingness.”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Miracle at Speedy Motors

Source: The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“There are many women whose lives would be immeasurably improved by widowhood, but one should not always point that out.”

Alexander McCall Smith book Espresso Tales

Source: Espresso Tales

“Why is it that there are always these problems and misunderstandings between men and women? Surely it would have been better if God had made only one sort of person, and the children had come by some other means, with the rain perhaps.”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Kalahari Typing School for Men

Source: The Kalahari Typing School for Men

“I am just a tiny person in Africa, but there is a place for me, and for everybody, to sit down on this earth and touch it and call it their own.”

Alexander McCall Smith The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Source: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

“There is plenty of work for love to do.”

Alexander McCall Smith book Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

Source: Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

“You are a lucky lady to be marrying a man who can fix things. Most husbands just break things.”

Alexander McCall Smith book Morality for Beautiful Girls

Source: Morality for Beautiful Girls

“Traditional Botswana men like ladies who are more traditionally shaped. You and I, Mma. We remind men of how things used to be in Botswana before these modern-shaped ladies started to get men all confused.”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Full Cupboard of Life

Source: The Full Cupboard of Life

“The previously unloved may find it hard to believe that they are now loved; that is such a miracle, they feel; such a miracle.”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Good Husband of Zebra Drive

Source: The Good Husband of Zebra Drive

“Special things have a way of surviving.”

Alexander McCall Smith

Source: The World According to Bertie

“Sorry about your sausage dog.”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs

The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs

“It was true, of course, there was an abnormal level of narcissism in our society, but it did not do, he told himself, to spend too much time going on about it. Society changed. Narcissism was about love, ultimately, even if only love of self. And that was better than hate…. Did it matter if young men thought of fashion and hair gel when, not all that many years ago, their thoughts tended to turn to war and flags and the grim partisanship of the football terrace?”

Alexander McCall Smith book Espresso Tales

Espresso Tales, chapter 3.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“And how we become like our parents! How their scorned advice – based, we felt in our superiority, on prejudices 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!”

Alexander McCall Smith

Love Over Scotland, chapter 68.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“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 book Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built, chapter 11.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series

“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

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate, chapter 5.
The Sunday Philosophy Club series

“Every small wrong, every minor act of cruelty, every act of petty bullying was symbolic of a greater wrong. And if we ignored these small things, then did it not blunt our outrage over the larger wrongs?”

Alexander McCall Smith

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, chapter 48.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“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

Love Over Scotland, chapter 96.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“It's like people inviting you to come along to a church service or an amateur orchestra. They're hoping that you'll join. People are recruiters at heart, you know. It makes them feel more comfortable to see the ranks of their particular enthusiasm swelling.”

Alexander McCall Smith book Espresso Tales

Espresso Tales, chapter 59.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“It is not enough just to identify a problem; there are plenty of people who were very skilled at pointing out what was wrong with the world, but they were not always so adept at working out how these things could be righted.”

Alexander McCall Smith book Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built, chapter 1.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series

“Each of us is born into our own mysteries…but the mystery of another might just take us in and embrace us. And then what a sense of homecoming, of belonging!”

Alexander McCall Smith

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate, chapter 15.
The Sunday Philosophy Club series

“Any extreme political creed brought only darkness in the long run; it lit up nothing. The best politics were those of caution, tolerance and moderation, Angus maintained, but such politics were, alas, also very dull, and certainly moved nobody to poetry.”

Alexander McCall Smith

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, chapter 30.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“Old friends, like old shoes, are comfortable. But old shoes, unlike old friends, tend not to be supportive: it is easier to stumble and sprain an ankle while wearing a pair of old shoes than it is in new shoes, with their less yielding leather.”

Alexander McCall Smith

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, chapter 8.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“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 book 44 Scotland Street

44 Scotland Street, chapter 1.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“One might expect bad behaviour from existentialists – indeed that was what existentialism was all about, was it not? – but to find this happening on one’s own doorstep was a shock.”

Alexander McCall Smith

Love Over Scotland, chapter 50.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“It would be wonderful to have a guru; it would be like having a social worker or a personal trainer, not that people who had either of these necessarily appreciated the advice they received.”

Alexander McCall Smith

Love Over Scotland, chapter 6.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“And that, in a way, was the burden of being a philosopher: one knew what one had to do, but it was so often the opposite of what one really wanted to do.”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Careful Use of Compliments

The Careful Use of Compliments, chapter 2.
The Sunday Philosophy Club series

“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

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate, chapter 3.
The Sunday Philosophy Club series

“Things can end badly, as they sometimes do in life. But if they do, then we know that something is wrong, just as we know it when a piece of music doesn’t resolve itself properly at the end. We know that. We just do. And so we prefer harmony.”

Alexander McCall Smith

Love Over Scotland, chapter 102.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“Everything you wanted to know about a person was written in the face, she believed. It’s not that she believed that the shape of the head was what counted– even if there were many who still clung to that belief; it was more a question of taking care to scrutinise the lines and the general look. And the eyes, of course; they were very important. The eyes allowed you to see right into a person, to penetrate their very essence, and that was why people with something to hide wore sunglasses indoors. They were the ones you had to watch very carefully.”

Alexander McCall Smith

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, chapter 1.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series

“They are a very great boon to mankind, dentists,’ said Isabel. ‘And I’m not sure that we are grateful enough to them. I’m not sure that we even bother to thank them.’ She paused. Were there any statues of dentists? She thought not. And yet there should be.”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Careful Use of Compliments

The Careful Use of Compliments, chapter 8.
The Sunday Philosophy Club series

“Our minds can come up with the most entertaining possibilities, if we let them. But most of the time, we keep them under far too close a check.”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Careful Use of Compliments

The Careful Use of Compliments, chapter 15.
The Sunday Philosophy Club series

“What else does a detective agency really need? Detective agencies rely on human intuition and intelligence, both of which Mma Ramotswe had in abundance. No inventory would ever include those, of course.”

Alexander McCall Smith

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, chapter 1.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series

“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?”

Alexander McCall Smith

and those things that we should have said are unsaid, and remain unsaid for ever.
Love Over Scotland, chapter 96.
The 44 Scotland Street series

“One might expect bad behaviour from existentialists – indeed that was what existentialism was all about, was it not?”

Alexander McCall Smith

but to find this happening on one’s own doorstep was a shock.
Love Over Scotland, chapter 50.
The 44 Scotland Street series

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