Alexander McCall Smith: Doing

Alexander McCall Smith is British writer. Explore interesting quotes on doing.
Alexander McCall Smith: 110 quotes1 like

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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