Alexander mccall smith Quotes - QuotesSweet | quotesweet.com

Author: Alexander McCall Smith
Quotes of Author: Alexander McCall Smith

Alexander McCall Smith _ The Unbearable Lightness of
He agreed with David Hockney that an artist really had to be able to draw before anything else could be achieved.
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Alexander McCall Smith _ Trains and Lovers
{...} Look at the way people try to make points of contact with others when they meet. Look at the way you instinctively try to establish whether somebody you meet for the first time knows somebody you know. Watch people do it. I'm from such and such place. Oh yes? So you know So-and-So? Yes! And So-and-So? No, I don't know her, but of course, there's So-and-So. That's how it works.""I suppose so. But why?""Because we don't like impersonality. Maybe..."David joined in. "Because we had to." She asked him: "Had to what?""Because he had to co-operate. That's deep in the genes. We had to co-operate with one another and so we needed to know whether the stranger was a threat. {...}
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Alexander McCall Smith _ What W. H. Auden Can Do for
We are human and vulnerable, whatever our individual situation: The moon looks on them all The Healers and the brilliant talkers The eccentrics and the silent walkers The dumpy and the tall."
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Alexander McCall Smith _ My Italian Bulldozer
Not all taxi drivers, Paul had discovered, actually wanted to take passengers to their destination; some of them, he felt, were in it for the arguments, or the opportunity to pontificate, or for the sheer pleasure of driving past those trying to summon them at the road edge. He made up his mind. What was the point of having a bulldozer if you were not going to make at least some use of it?
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Alexander McCall Smith _ The Second-Worst Restaurant in
Eating with others was different from just talking to them-it was an act of commitment, a recognition of shared humanity. We all share these physical needs, it said; we are brothers and sisters in our vulnerability.
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Alexander McCall Smith _ 44 Scotland Street
We all have Proustian moments, but don't really know about it until we read Proust.
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Alexander McCall Smith _ 44 Scotland Street
In such a way is freedom of thought lost," said Angus Lordie, who had been listening very attentively to Domenica. "By small cuts. By small acts of disapproval. By a thousand discouragements of spirit."
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Alexander McCall Smith _ The Department of Sensitive
I like you when you're algebraic," said Ulf-and immediately regretted it. It was a flirtatious remark-describing somebody as algebraic was undoubtedly to cross a line. You would not normally describe an ordinary friend as algebraic, and then say that you liked her that way. He saw the effect on Anna, and his regret deepened. "Algebraic?" she said, half coyly. "Well, I'm very happy to enter into any equation.
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Alexander McCall Smith _ The Unbearable Lightness of
I can't, Tofu," said Bertie. "I can't join the cubs." Tofu was dismissive of Bertie's protestation. "You can't? Why? Is it because you think you'll fail the medical examination? There isn't one. That's the army you're thinking of. The cubs will take anyone – even somebody like you.
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Alexander McCall Smith _ The Department of Sensitive
But sometimes cats just have nasty natures, don't you think? And you can't do much about a personality disorder. Cats are psychopaths at heart.
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Alexander McCall Smith _ The Department of Sensitive
She really is a huge fan." Ulf closed his eyes. He saw the professor being pursued by a group of his fans, the huge ones struggling to keep up with the thinner, more lithe fans, dropping exhausted and disappointed.
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Alexander McCall Smith _ The Unbearable Lightness of
Look at what very ordinary people have lost, and think about that for a moment. What has happened to working-class communities in Scotland? To miners, for example. To fishermen? Who? You might well ask. To men and women who work with their hands? Who again? These people are being swept away by globalisation. Swept away. Now they're all so demoralised that they're caught in the culture of permanent sick notes. And who speaks for the young Scottish male, as a matter of interest?
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