We act out our lives to a soundtrack, thought Isabel, the music that becomes, for a spell, out favourite and is listened to again and again until it stands for the time itself. But that was about all the scripting that we achieved; the rest, for most of us, was extemporising.
Alexander McCall Smith The Right Attitude to...
(0 Reviews)

Isabel reflects on how our lives often feel like they are accompanied by a specific soundtrack, a collection of meaningful songs that resonate with particular moments. These tunes become intertwined with our experiences, representing a period in time until they are replayed countless times, evoking nostalgia and memory. Yet, despite this musical background, she recognizes that most of life unfolds spontaneously, like improvisation rather than a carefully written script.

This insight highlights the balance between the planned and the unpredictable in our lives. While we may curate certain experiences and moments that feel significant, the vast majority of our experiences are unplanned and arise in the moment. Rather than a definitive narrative, life is often an ongoing performance where we adapt and respond to situations as they unfold, allowing for a deeper connection to the world around us.

Categories
music
Book
The Right Attitude to...
Author
Alexander McCall Smith
Votes
0
Page views
508
Update
January 23, 2025
Report
Report a Problem

Rate the Quote

Add Comment & Review

User Reviews

Based on 0 reviews
5 Star
0
4 Star
0
3 Star
0
2 Star
0
1 Star
0
Add Comment & Review
We'll never share your email with anyone else.
More »

Other quotes in 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.
Alexander McCall Smith The Right Attitude to...
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.
Children, like cats, made a house into a home, and the echoes of their presence lingered.
Alexander McCall Smith The Right Attitude to...
Children, like cats, made a house into a home, and the echoes of their presence lingered.
Nobody enjoys being on display," said Isabel. But then she thought: Some do, and so she added, "Except actors. And narcissists.
Alexander McCall Smith The Right Attitude to...
Nobody enjoys being on display," said Isabel. But then she thought: Some do, and so she added, "Except actors. And narcissists.
You haven't offended me at all. You've made me think. That's all.
Alexander McCall Smith The Right Attitude to...
You haven't offended me at all. You've made me think. That's all.
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.
Alexander McCall Smith The Right Attitude to...
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.
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?
Alexander McCall Smith The Right Attitude to...
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?
More »

Other quotes in music

I was being very bad because I didn't know how to express myself. Music gave me an outlet to express myself and channel that anger.
Tory Lanez
I was being very bad because I didn't know how to express myself. Music gave me an outlet to express myself and channel that anger.
If I were to make an uneducated guess about L.A.'s relationship with folk and psychedelia, I would say it must be the weather.
Rain Phoenix
If I were to make an uneducated guess about L.A.'s relationship with folk and psychedelia, I would say it must be the weather.
They had taken to the movement unlike anything he had ever seen, and he thought that should this venture of the Jews prove successful, the new state would be filled with dancers and musicians, but especially dancers, for dancing like nothing else says: I am still alive.
Mark Helprin Refiner's Fire
They had taken to the movement unlike anything he had ever seen, and he thought that should this venture of the Jews prove successful, the new state would be filled with dancers and musicians, but especially dancers, for dancing like nothing else says: I am still alive.
I wish that, like you, I could have spent my life transported aloft, as it were, every day, in music. Instead, I've lived like a caffeinated parrot.
Mark Helprin Paris in the Present...
I wish that, like you, I could have spent my life transported aloft, as it were, every day, in music. Instead, I've lived like a caffeinated parrot.
If it weren't for music, I would think that love is mortal.
Mark Helprin A Soldier of the Great...
If it weren't for music, I would think that love is mortal.
Tax not so bad a voice to slander music any more than once.
William Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing
Tax not so bad a voice to slander music any more than once.
More »

Popular quotes

Taffy. He thinks about taffy. He thinks it would take his teeth out now, but he would eat it anyhow, if it meant eating it with her. Mitch Albom
All our human endeavours are like that, she reflected, and it is only because we are too ignorant to realize it, or are too forgetful to remember it, that we have the confidence to build something that is meant to last. Alexander McCall Smith
The value of money is subjective, depending on age. At the age of one, one multiplies the actual sum by 145,000, making one pound seem like 145,000 pounds to a one-year-old. At seven – Bertie's age – the multiplier is 24, so that five pounds seems like 120 pounds. At the age of twenty four, five pounds is five pounds; at forty five it is divided by 5, so that it seems like one pound and one pound seems like twenty pence. {All figures courtesy of Scottish Government Advice Leaflet: Handling your Money.} Alexander McCall Smith
In fact, none of us knows how he ever managed to get his LLB in the first place. Maybe they're putting law degrees in cornflakes boxes these days. Alexander McCall Smith
The Red Lion was a four-ale bar with a handful of lowbrowed sons of toil who looked as though they might be related to one another in ways frowned on by the Old Testament. Sebastian Faulks
Look, if you say that science will eventually prove there is no God, on that I must differ. No matter how small they take it back, to a tadpole, to an atom, there is always something they can't explain, something that created it all at the end of the search. And no matter how far they try to go the other way – to extend life, play around with the genes, clone this, clone that, live to one hundred and fifty – at some point, life is over. And then what happens? When the life comes to an end? I shrugged. You see? He leaned back. He smiled. When you come to the end, that's where God begins. Mitch Albom
Small towns are like metronomes; with the slightest flick, the beat changes. Mitch Albom
You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole. Mitch Albom
we get so many lives between birth and death. A life to be a child. A life to come of age. A life to wander, to settle, to fall in love, to parent, to test our promise, to realize our mortality-and, in some lucky cases, to do something after that realization. Mitch Albom
But an ink brush, she thinks, is a skeleton key for a prisoner's mind. David Mitchell
All Categories »

Categories

love
inspirational
history
soul