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 are small inside, and if you're small inside, you can't be big outside. It...

These days people seemed to suggest that you should talk about everything, even those things that people never talked about in the past, but did this make life any easier? She was not sure. In fact,...

I think this bandage is not needed," said Mma Ramotswe, bending down to remove it. "Hospitals feel they have to put a bandage on anybody who goes there-just in case. Sometimes you get a bandage even...

of the large numbers of people who applied for jobs, and she wondered how employers managed to select from such a wide field. Was everyone interviewed? And even if that happened, how did one...

She is a good housemother, that one," said Mma Ramotswe. Mma Potokwane agreed. "Whenever I hear people say that the country is going to the dogs-and there are such people, you know, Mma…

people are very slow to say sorry. I

people in Canada talk about feeling solitude? They sometimes call it a country of solitudes.

Trust your nose, but make sure it's pointing in the right direction.

The country must be full of liars," she continued. "There must be liars around every corner. Liars hiding behind every bush. Liars just waiting to tell lies about something. Unrepentant liars. Old...

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, she asked, do you think that our souls grow as we get older? He did not answer immediately, but when he did, she thought his answer quite perfect. Yes, he said. Our souls get...

Why do you ask that dog if he has a soul? Mma Ramotswe sighed. It's very complicated, Rra. You see…Well, you see: Mma Makutsi said dogs were just meat inside. Those were her actual words. She's...

Without delay, echoed Charlie. Those are very good words, I think. Without delay. Please will you pay my bill without delay. Please leave without delay. Please improve your attitude without delay…...

A kind word, a word of encouragement or admiration, could shift the heaviest, most recalcitrant baggage.

And then," continued the clerk, "they send those students out at the end of their course and say, 'Go off and use those big words and long sentences to get all the good, high-paying jobs. And once...

Mma Ramotswe had been understanding. Men who sired children and then failed to accept responsibility for them were anathema to her, and she reserved particular disapproval for those who then...

I think it's best for us to face up to our own mistakes, she

and Mma Potokwane remained uncertain whether Mma Ramotswe was testate or intestate.

Mr. Polopetsi is such a…such a modest man, even perhaps a bit mousy." She transferred her gaze to Mma Ramotswe. "Not that I want to be rude, Mma.

Be very careful of anything that looks too good to be true. Because if it looks too good to be true, that's probably because that's exactly what it is!

And having a servant was not a sign of wealth or privilege-even a modest establishment would have a maid, as this was an important way of providing employment that would otherwise not exist.

But if you do not forgive, and you think all the time about getting even, or punishing somebody who has done you a wrong, what are you achieving?

there were occasions on which talking about distressing things merely kept those things alive, whereas not talking about them, consigning them to the past, forgetting them, allowed one to think about...

She could turn away and say that they had nothing to do with her, or she could accept that they had somehow touched her skirt. ...we all had a skirt, and those who touched our skirt became our...

but then where would one end if one started to compose a list of the wrongs that this world had seen? Better perhaps, thought Mma Ramotswe, to make a list of those things that were right with the...

She meant it, and as she spoke, she thought how strange it was that we so very rarely said complimentary things to our friends, and how easy it was to do so, and how it made the world seem a less...

Make sure that the road is always clear for your enemy to leave'?

Love was like rain; there could be periods of drought when it seemed that love would never return, would never make its presence felt again. In such times, the heart could harden, but then, just as...

Saying sorry does not make you look small-it makes you look big.

She had always believed that people who were nasty or unkind to others were only like that because there was something wrong in their lives, and that people who had something wrong in their lives were...

A change of oil…yes, that was what we all needed from time to time, whether we were an engine or a person. And there were other similarities to be explored. Engines had to be handled gently, as did...