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It's through the small things that we develop our moral imagination, so that we can understand the sufferings of others.

Alexander McCall Smith

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Alexander McCall Smith
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: August 24
Novelist
Teacher
Writer
Alexander Sandy McCall Smith
Develop
Imagination
Small
Moral
Suffering
Understand
Others
Things
Sufferings

More quotes by Alexander McCall Smith

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If your ceiling should fall down, then you have lost a room, but gained a courtyard. Think of it that way.
Alexander McCall Smith
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But don't we often lie to people we love, or not tell them things, precisely because we love them?
Alexander McCall Smith
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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
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Dogs are in on our human silliness lions are not.
Alexander McCall Smith
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There is plenty of work for love to do.
Alexander McCall Smith
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Do not take on a traditionally built person unless you are prepared for a heavyweight bout.
Alexander McCall Smith
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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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Life consists of positive and negative features, and I think that it is permissible to write about both.
Alexander McCall Smith
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A life without stories would be no life at all. And stories bound us, did they not, one to another, the living to the dead, people to animals, people to the land?
Alexander McCall Smith
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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
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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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That my philosophy of life is, as far as possible, one of enjoyment. I'm not nihilistic.
Alexander McCall Smith
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It is the search for beauty...That is what it is. We find ourselves on this earth--gods and men--and we know that it is beautiful. That is one of the few things we understand--beauty because it is there, in the world, and we can see it all about us. We want beauty. It requires our love. It just does.
Alexander McCall Smith
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Any extreme political creed brought only darkness in the long run it lit up nothing. The best politics were those of caution, tolerance and moderation, Angus maintained, but such politics were, alas, also very dull, and certainly moved nobody to poetry.
Alexander McCall Smith
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My parents were very supportive and always encouraged us. My father was a gentle, nice man. My mother was quite a colourful character and a keen reader who encouraged me to write.
Alexander McCall Smith
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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
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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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If you want to write, do two things - read lots of books and also, in your own writing, practise. Just write and write and then write again. persist. And never be put off or discouraged. You can do it!
Alexander McCall Smith
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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
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I would certainly never consider myself a Renaissance Man I'm not fit to look at the dust from the chariot wheels of many of those who have gone before me.
Alexander McCall Smith