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Book: The Right Attitude to Rain
Quotes of Book: The Right Attitude to Rain
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  1. Alexander McCall Smith _ The Right Attitude to Rain

    The whole culture of work had become so intrusive and demanding that people had to do it. And the result was that they were left with little time for simply living their lives, for going for a walk, for sitting in a bar, for reading a book. It was all work.
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  2. Alexander McCall Smith _ The Right Attitude to Rain

    Children, like cats, made a house into a home, and the echoes of their presence lingered.
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  3. Alexander McCall Smith _ The Right Attitude to Rain

    Nobody enjoys being on display," said Isabel. But then she thought: Some do, and so she added, "Except actors. And narcissists.
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  4. Alexander McCall Smith _ The Right Attitude to Rain

    You haven't offended me at all. You've made me think. That's all.
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  5. Alexander McCall Smith _ The Right Attitude to Rain

    In bed that night, in the darkness, with the illuminated dial of her alarm clock glowing from the bedside table, she asked herself whether one could force oneself to like somebody, or whether one could merely create the conditions for affection to come into existence and hope that it did, spontaneously.
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  6. Alexander McCall Smith _ The Right Attitude to Rain

    You have each other, thought Isabel.But was that enough? Even when one was in love, it was not really enough just to have the other person - not if one needed stimulation. The company of just one person could be reassuring, could stave off loneliness, but would it be enough for three months?
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  7. Alexander McCall Smith _ The Right Attitude to Rain

    She had noticed that there was a tendency on the part of some Americans to believe that everybody, deep inside, wanted to live in America, and that it was inexplicable that people who could do so did not.
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  8. Alexander McCall Smith _ The Right Attitude to Rain

    How many of us are happy to be exactly where we are at any moment?"
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  9. Alexander McCall Smith _ The Right Attitude to Rain

    None of us is immune to shipwreck. Come, beckons the fatal shore: come and die on my white sands, it said. And we do.
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  10. Alexander McCall Smith _ The Right Attitude to Rain

    Artists were allowed to do that - to look, to gaze at others and try to find out what it was that they were feeling - but we, who were not artists, were not. If one looked too hard that would be considered voyeurism, or nosienss, which is what Cat, her neice, had accused her of more than once. Jamie - the boyfriend rejected by Cat but kept on by Isabel as a friend - had done the same althought more tactfully. He had said that she needed to draw a line in the world with me written on one side and you on the other. Me would be her business; you would be the business of others, and an invitation would be required to cross the line.She had said to Jamie: "Not a good idea, Jamie. What if people on the other side of the line are in trouble?"That's different," he said. "You help them."By streching a hand across this line of yours?"Of course. Helping people is different."She had said: "But then we have to know what they need, don't we? We have to be aware of others. If we went about concerned with only our own little world, how would we know when there was trouble brewing on the other side of the line?
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  11. Alexander McCall Smith _ The Right Attitude to Rain

    To be able to imagine the ohter, and the experience of the other was what wisdome was all about; but nobody talked about wisdom very much anymore, nor virtue perhaps because wisdom was nto appreciated in a world of glitz and effect.
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  12. Alexander McCall Smith _ The Right Attitude to Rain

    We chose younger and younger politicians to lead us because they looked good on television and were sharp. But really we should be looking for wisdom, and choosing people who had acquired it; and such people, in general, looked bad on television - gray, lined, thoughtful.
    book-quoteyouthpoliticianstelevision
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