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Book: A Distant View of Everything
Quotes of Book: A Distant View of Everything
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  1. Alexander McCall Smith _ A Distant View of Everything

    And where does religion come into it? Are Protestant countries inherently less corrupt?" "No," she said. "I don't think it's that simple. The issue, I suppose, is whether a culture stresses telling the truth. That's the real point. It's not religion.
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  2. Alexander McCall Smith _ A Distant View of Everything

    She was thinking of Mobile, where her mother-her "sainted American mother," as she called her-had spent her childhood. That was a place of shady streets; of moss that hung from the boughs of trees, as if draped there for adornment by some enthusiastic exterior decorator; of sultry, velvet evenings. Things moved slowly in Mobile, as they did, traditionally, throughout the South. And why should they not? If you walked quickly, then all you did was to reach your destination early; nothing had been gained. And if you spoke quickly, you got more words out, but were those words any better for that?
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  3. Alexander McCall Smith _ A Distant View of Everything

    We become the people we live with. Imperceptibly at first, but with a certain inevitability, we become the other.
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  4. Alexander McCall Smith _ A Distant View of Everything

    We assume so much, don't we? We assume that our children are going to be reasonable. We assume they're going to see things as we see them. And then suddenly we discover that they can look at things quite differently.
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  5. Alexander McCall Smith _ A Distant View of Everything

    Like so many women, her life seemed to be all about the needs of others. Auden had said something about that, she reminded herself-something witty. We are here on this earth to help others, but he had no idea why the others were here.
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  6. Alexander McCall Smith _ A Distant View of Everything

    She said that too." His voice was low key and modest. The accent, which was not very pronounced, had the gentle burr of the Scottish professional classes. This was an accent that would score highly in those tests of reliability that newspapers liked to carry out-those surveys that tended to reveal that a mild Scottish accent in a bank manager or financial adviser inspired more public trust than any other voice. By the same token, although the surveys were never so tactless as to point it out, people were reluctant to take investment recommendations from a person with a very strong Irish accent. There was no objective reason for this, of course, even if Ireland had created a property bubble of gargantuan proportions in the days of easily borrowed money. These views were tied in with old perceptions, and were slow to change, even in the face of hard evidence.
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  7. Alexander McCall Smith _ A Distant View of Everything

    The eyes are the window of the soul…it was such a well-worn adage, a cliché by now, but Isabel had read that neuroscience, which was validating so many intuitive, ancient beliefs about who we were and how we lived our lives, now confirmed this insight too. The part of the brain that was most closely associated with self-awareness, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, lay directly behind the eyes. So that was where we were located-that was where the soul was to be found, if it were to be found anywhere.
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  8. Alexander McCall Smith _ A Distant View of Everything

    Preserve' is an entirely suitable motto for a jam-making company," said one. "Marmalade and so on-I'm not so sure it's quite right for a firm of lawyers.
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  9. Alexander McCall Smith _ A Distant View of Everything

    I'm glad you came," said Rob. "I like having lunch. I find it a much more sociable meal than dinner.
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  10. Alexander McCall Smith _ A Distant View of Everything

    The trouble with having a conscience, she said to herself, is that it never sleeps."
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  11. Alexander McCall Smith _ A Distant View of Everything

    There's a poem about onions," she said. "It's about how memory is like an onion-it makes you cry.
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  12. Alexander McCall Smith _ A Distant View of Everything

    Waiting in the reception area, she had flicked through a news magazine that had been lying on the table for clients to read while waiting for their appointment. On the cover there had been a picture of a well-known politician, a man famous for his rudeness and aggression. She had looked at the eyes--the piercing, accusing eyes, and had seen only an impenetrable, defensive anger. Nothing--no forced smiles nor rehearsed protestation of concern, could cancel out the cold selfishness of those eyes.
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