Quote

The good were worthy of note because they battled and that battle was a great story, whereas the evil were evil because of moral laziness, or weakness, and that was ultimately a dull and uninteresting affair.

Alexander McCall Smith

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alexander McCall Smith
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: August 24
Novelist
Teacher
Writer
Alexander Sandy McCall Smith
Story
Dull
Evil
Affair
Stories
Ultimately
Great
Notes
Battled
Good
Worthy
Uninteresting
Weakness
Laziness
Battle
Note
Moral
Whereas

More quotes by Alexander McCall Smith

Image
A very powerful theme in fiction is that of loss.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
Writers obviously have to bear witness to the harsh face of the age.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
There was a distinction between lying and telling half-truths, but it was a very narrow one.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
We think the world is ours forever, but we are little more than squatters.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
We need to believe I think in justice. We need to run our lives as if justice existed... If we abandon a belief that justice will eventually be done, we make this world much more difficult for ourselves.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
Every small wrong, every minor act of cruelty, every act of petty bullying was symbolic of a greater wrong. And if we ignored these small things, then did it not blunt our outrage over the larger wrongs?
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
As a writer, I have readers who will have a range of political views. I don't think they look to me for political guidance.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
But we make such mistakes all the time, all through our lives. Wisdom, I suppose, is seeing this and acting upon it before it is too late. But it is often too late, isn't it? - and those things that we should have said are unsaid, and remain unsaid for ever.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
The point about love, the essential point, was that we loved what we loved. We did not choose. We just loved.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
There is plenty of work for love to do.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
I'm interested in character and dialogue and exchange of ideas.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
At night we are all strangers, even to ourselves.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
I can read more languages than I speak! I speak French and Italian - not very well, alas, but I can get by. I read German and Spanish. I can read Latin (I did a lot of Latin at school.) I'm afraid I do not speak any African languages, although I can understand a little bit of the Zulu-related languages, but only a tiny bit.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
My wife Elizabeth and I started The Really Terrible Orchestra for people like us who are pretty hopeless musicians who would like to play in an orchestra. It has been a great success. We give performances weve become the most famous bad orchestra in the world.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
The Culture of Complaint... We live in a culture of complaint because everyone is always looking for things to complain about. It's all tied in with the desire to blame others for misfortunes and to get some form of compensation into the bargain.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
Each of us is born into our own mysteries but the mystery of another might just take us in and embrace us. And then what a sense of homecoming, of belonging!
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
We all know that it is women who take the decisions, but we have to let men think that the decisions are theirs. It is an act of kindness on the part of women.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
You can go through life and make new friends every year - every month practically - but there was never any substitute for those friendships of childhood that survive into adult years. Those are the ones in which we are bound to one another with hoops of steel.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
The people with the strong, brave exteriors are just as weak and vulnerable as the rest of us. And of course they never admit to their childish practices, their moments of weakness or absurdity, and then the rest of us think that's how it should be.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
Painters aren't expected to paint bleak pictures, are they?
Alexander McCall Smith