If your ceiling should fall down, then you have lost a room, but gained a courtyard. Think of it that way. — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
That of all people, it should be him; that took her aback. That the heart should settle on somebody like him; that… — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
A wedding was a strange ceremony, she thought, with all those formal words, those solemn vows made by one to another; whereas… — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
But we make such mistakes all the time, all through our lives. Wisdom, I suppose, is seeing this and acting upon it… — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
We should be careful of the insults we fling at others, lest they return and land at our feet, newly minted to… — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
They're very beautiful, aren't they? Clouds are very beautiful and yet so often we fail to appreciate them properly. We should do… — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
I have always taken the view that one should never hold against a man anything he says after twelve o'clock at night… — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
The people with the strong, brave exteriors are just as weak and vulnerable as the rest of us. And of course they… — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
There are many women whose lives would be immeasurably improved by widowhood, but one should not always point that out. — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
You're always told by your publisher that you must only write one book a year and some years you should perhaps write… — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
“old-fashioned, gentle Scottish physician, unmoved by the considerations of profit and personal gain that could so disfigure medicine. That doctors should consider themselves businessmen… — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
“She had not made a lot of money, but she had not made a loss, and she had been happy and entertained. That counted… — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
And that, in a way, was the burden of being a philosopher: one knew what one had to do, but it was so often… — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
“To use strong language, she thought, was a sign of bad temper and lack of concern for others. Such people were not clever or… — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
“Men are very sensitive, Mma Makutsi. You would not always think it to look at them, but they are. They do not like you… — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
“He is a good man, but even a good man can fall for a glamorous woman. That is well known.” “That is very well… — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
“And then the second thing you have to do is go and see your son. That is a duty of love, Andrew. It's as… — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
“Because laughs never die away entirely,” said Jamie. “At least, if you believe in Marconi.” — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
“The trouble with having a conscience, she said to herself, is that it never sleeps.” — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
“And if there's bad behaviour," Mma Potokwane went on. "If there's bad behaviour, the quickest way of stopping it is to give more love.… — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
“Has he not got a wife back wherever he comes from? Is there no wife to say, ‘You must not go off and visit… — Alexander McCall Smith Copy Share Image
