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Talking about pumpkins doesn't make them grow.

Alexander McCall Smith

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Alexander McCall Smith
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: August 24
Novelist
Teacher
Writer
Alexander Sandy McCall Smith
Doesn
Make
Pumpkins
Pumpkin
Grow
Grows
Talking

More quotes by Alexander McCall Smith

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It would be wonderful to have a guru it would be like having a social worker or a personal trainer, not that people who had either of these necessarily appreciated the advice they received.
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Oh I love gadgets and I pride myself on keeping at the cutting edge of technology.
Alexander McCall Smith
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I write four books a year. I'm very fortunate that I write quickly around 3,500 words a day. Being strict about delineating my writing time and personal life, as well as keeping distractions at bay, is the only way I can accomplish this.
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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
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Everybody has friends they dislike people who they have slipped into relationships with, people they would not have chosen had they been more cautious, more circumspect.
Alexander McCall Smith
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I just focus on getting the first scene right, with a few lines about the overall plot, and then the book grows organically.
Alexander McCall Smith
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Ritual is a terribly important, binding cement in a society. If we abandon formality and rituals, we're actually weakening the relationships that exist between people that bind.
Alexander McCall Smith
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Most people want nothing to happen. That is the problem with governments these days. They want to do things all the time they are always very busy thinking of what things they can do next. That is not what people want. People want to be left alone to look after their cattle.
Alexander McCall Smith
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Lou knew that joy unshared was a halved emotion, just as sadness and loss, when borne alone, were often doubled.
Alexander McCall Smith
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I am just a tiny person in Africa, but there is a place for me, and for everybody, to sit down on this earth and touch it and call it their own.
Alexander McCall Smith
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New York is a wonderful place to be up, an awful place to be down.
Alexander McCall Smith
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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
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I've always had a creative urge and I get immense satisfaction from creating something because it feels like I'm making sense of the world and imposing order on it.
Alexander McCall Smith
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I am capable of being idle.
Alexander McCall Smith
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Who can't like pigs? They're wonderful creatures! I've always liked pigs.
Alexander McCall Smith
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I enjoy women's conversation, and I think that helps me to describe them in fiction.
Alexander McCall Smith
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None of us knows how we will cope with snakes until the moment arises, and then most of us find out that we do not do it very well.
Alexander McCall Smith
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How many of us are happy to be exactly where we are at any moment?...only the completely happy think that they are in the correct place.
Alexander McCall Smith
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It is sometimes easier to be happy if you don't know everything.
Alexander McCall Smith
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Be content with who you are and where you are, and do whatever you can do to bring to others such contentment, and joy, and understanding that you have managed to find yourself.
Alexander McCall Smith