Alexander McCall Smith

Be content with who you are and where you are, and do whatever you can do to bring to others such contentment,…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“You were looking for somebody, and there was somebody, and you would convince yourself that this random person was what you were…

— Alexander McCall Smith

You can go through life and make new friends every year - every month practically - but there was never any substitute…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“Why is it that there are always these problems and misunderstandings between men and women? Surely it would have been better if…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“Most problems could be diminished by the drinking of tea and the thinking through of things that could be done while tea…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“Saying sorry does not make you look small—it makes you look big.” “I think so too,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “But some people…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“In bed that night, in the darkness, with the illuminated dial of her alarm clock glowing from the bedside table, she asked…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“unconscionable–eating the food in a supermarket was simply theft, and could be distinguished from shoplifting only by virtue of the nature of…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“The readers of Isabel's journal were affected by the conversations within its covers-if nothing else, the livingroom of their moral imagination became…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“None of us knows how we will cope with snakes until the moment arises, and then most of us find out that…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“Teaching is so demanding, and you get so little support. That pinch will have done Olive no harm - probably a lot…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“Great feuds often need very few words to resolve them. Disputes, even between nations, between peoples, can be set to rest with…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“She was of traditional build herself, but her figure was largely concealed by the folds of a generously cut shift dress made…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“Most morality, thought Mma Ramotswe, was about doing the right thing because it had been identified as such by a long process…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“She would have wished for the suffering of Africa to be relieved, to be legislated out of existence, but it seemed that…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“Mma Ramotswe had been thinking a great deal recently about how people might be fitted in. The world was a large place,…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“People caused harm to others because they were of malevolent disposition, that was shear human wickedness. something that has always existed and…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“Mma Ramotswe decided to go back into her office. There was a curious thing about male conversation that she had noticed -…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“Something terrible happened and people began to shake. It was the reminder that frightened them; the reminder of just how close to…

— Alexander McCall Smith

The Culture of Complaint... We live in a culture of complaint because everyone is always looking for things to complain about. It's…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“Animals, like people, did not ask to be who or what they were, and to make life difficult for others simply for…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“old-fashioned, gentle Scottish physician, unmoved by the considerations of profit and personal gain that could so disfigure medicine. That doctors should consider…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“Why should everybody embrace the herd instinct, which required one to regard one set of politicians as being always in the right…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“she imagined what it would be like to live with somebody who had secrets. Instead of a comfortable atmosphere of trust there…

— Alexander McCall Smith

It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“That’s perfect,” he said. “I’m sorry about that. It’s genetic, I think. My mother had exactly the same problem, and a cousin…

— Alexander McCall Smith

Gracious acceptance is an art - an art which most never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how…

— Alexander McCall Smith

Many of my books are written from a female perspective. I rather enjoy the take that women have on the world, and…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“This was loyalty of a sort which was rare in an age of self-indulgence. It was an old-fashioned virtue of the type…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“Everybody who consulted her was, in their way, hurting--even this rich man with his big Mercedes-Benz and his expensive cuff-links. Human hurt…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“And that is why we must answer her hatred with love. I can't say whether it will change her in her heart…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“of the large numbers of people who applied for jobs, and she wondered how employers managed to select from such a wide…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“Tea, for me, is one of the great subjects. It is a romatic trade, it does not pollute excessively, it has all…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“Professor Dr Moritz-Maria Von Igelfeld often reflected on how fortunate he was to be exactly who he was, and nobody else. When…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“. . . there was something that Isabel had said that always stuck in his mind. Remember what you have and the…

— Alexander McCall Smith

Dating is really all about sex. In the conventional context, this means that the man invites the woman to go through a…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“She felt that she had revealed something to Cat, and with revealing something about oneself there always comes a sense of lightening…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“He seemed genuinely astonished. "You admire me?" "Yes," she said gravely. "All of us do things we regret--that's part of being human.…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“It just did not make sense; unless, of course, as she had suggested, we all have a weak point, an area of…

— Alexander McCall Smith

“Sometimes it was important simply to get out. It did not matter where you went, as long as you got out of…

— Alexander McCall Smith