He tilted his hat back slightly, so that he could see the sky more clearly. It was so empty, so dizzying in its height, so unconcerned by the man who was crossing a field beneath it, and thinking as...

...high heels were always a temptation, but, like all temptations, one paid for them later...

They were also shoes that would give the wearer confidence: a person could speak with authority in such shoes.

Be gentle...Many of the people who will come to see you are injured in spirit. They need to talk about things that have hurt them, or about things that they have done. Do not sit in judgement on them,...

...it made me think of everything I had done. It made me weigh up my life. And it made me want to tie things up, so that next time - and I hope there will not be a next time - the next time I faced...

It was reasonable enough, of course, for people to wish to speak to a man, if that is what they wanted, but that did not mean that a man would be better.

The recipe for each child is just for that child, even if it is the same mother and father.

She believed in getting as much use as possible from everything, and thought that as long as machinery, or anything else, could be cajoled into operation, it should be kept; to do otherwise, she...

The shoes themselves were light green, with lowish heels {which were very important for comfort and walking; high heels were always a temptation, but, like all temptations, one paid for them later}.

It was hard to disappear completely in Botswana, where there were fewer than two million people and where people had a healthy curiosity as to who was who and where people had come from. It was very...

Perhaps they could get married in heaven, if he left it too late. That would certainly be cheaper.

She had lost her baby, and where was she? She hoped that her baby was happy and would be waiting for her when she left Botswana and went to heaven. Would Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni get round to naming a...

Yes, thought Mma Ramotswe, the world can be very discouraging. But we cannot sit and think about all the things that have gone wrong, or could go wrong. There was no point in doing that...There was...

You do not have to read a book to understand how the world works. You just have to keep your eyes open.

bureaucracy was very rarely an obstruction, provided that one applied to it the insights of ordinary, everyday psychology

She had a great respect for books herself, and she wished that she had read more. One could never read enough. Never.

This was the difficulty with laws and with legal language: they used language which very few people, apart from lawyers, understood. Penal Codes, then, were all very well, but she wondered whether it...

Insincerity had never come easily to her, but good manners required it on occasion, even if a superhuman effort was needed.

That was the trouble with people in general: they were surprisingly unrealistic in their expectations.

A traditional house smelled of wood smoke, the earth, and of thatch; all good smells, the smell of life itself.

because it is possible to change the world, if one is determined enough, and if one sees with sufficient clarity just what it is that has to be changed.

Rich people are just people," said Mma Ramotswe. "I have not met a rich person yet who isn't just the same as us. Being happy or unhappy has nothing to do with being rich.

It was a good place to sit, and listen, under a sky that had seen so much and heard so much that one more wicked deed would surely make no difference. Sins, thought Mma Ramotswe, are darker and more...

If we let the men talk about them and decide them, then suddenly we wake up and find out that the men have made all the decisions, and these decisions all suit men.

It was always the best way of finding out information; just go and ask a woman who keeps her eyes and ears open and who likes to talk. It always worked. It was no use asking men; they simply were not...

She hoped that her baby was happy and would be waiting for her when she herself left Botswana and went to heaven. Would Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni get round to naming a wedding date before then? She hoped...

People's lives are delicate; you cannot interfere with them without running the risk of changing them profoundly. A chance remark, a careless involvement, may make the difference between a life of...

Why is it that there are always these problems and misunderstandings between men and women? Surely it would have been better if God had made only one sort of person, and the children had come by some...