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I cannot see myself in a new car. I am a tiny white van person. That is what i want!

Alexander McCall Smith

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Alexander McCall Smith
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: August 24
Novelist
Teacher
Writer
Alexander Sandy McCall Smith
Car
White
Cannot
Persons
Person
Vans
Tiny

More quotes by Alexander McCall Smith

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Dating is really all about sex. In the conventional context, this means that the man invites the woman to go through a social encounter, the ultimate purpose of which is sexual engagement.
Alexander McCall Smith
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A wedding was a strange ceremony, she thought, with all those formal words, those solemn vows made by one to another whereas the real question that should be put to the two people involved was a very simple one. Are you happy with each other? was the only question that should be asked to which they both should reply, preferably in unison, Yes.
Alexander McCall Smith
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The Okavango Delta is an astonishing sight: the great Okavango River, rather than flow towards the sea, flows inland, into the sands of the Kalahari.
Alexander McCall Smith
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Every novel presents a slice of life. A noir policier for example presents one slice, one that perhaps addresses social dysfunction or some sort of pathology, while mine present a slice that is more upbeat and affirmative.
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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It is not enough just to identify a problem there are plenty of people who were very skilled at pointing out what was wrong with the world, but they were not always so adept at working out how these things could be righted.
Alexander McCall Smith
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To lose a child ... was something that could end one's world. One could never get back to how it was before. The stars went out. The moon disappeared. The birds became silent.
Alexander McCall Smith
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We are all tempted, Mma. We are all tempted when it comes to cake.
Alexander McCall Smith
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A very powerful theme in fiction is that of loss.
Alexander McCall Smith
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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
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Manners are the basic building blocks of civil society.
Alexander McCall Smith
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[Edinburgh] is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas. A city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again.
Alexander McCall Smith
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As a writer, you have to realize that people want to like the characters, so you have to be careful to keep them involved.
Alexander McCall Smith
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We should be careful of the insults we fling at others, lest they return and land at our feet, newly minted to apply to those who had first coined them.
Alexander McCall Smith
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Old friends, like old shoes, are comfortable. But old shoes, unlike old friends, tend not to be supportive: it is easier to stumble and sprain an ankle while wearing a pair of old shoes than it is in new shoes, with their less yielding leather.
Alexander McCall Smith
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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
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Dogs are in on our human silliness lions are not.
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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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.
Alexander McCall Smith
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Antonia was very conscious of the corrosive power of envy and felt that it was this emotion, more than any other, which lay behind human unhappiness. People did not realize how widespread envy was.
Alexander McCall Smith