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One of the most destructive things that's happening in modern society is that we are losing our sense of the bonds that bind people together - which can lead to nightmares of social collapse.

Alexander McCall Smith

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Alexander McCall Smith
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: August 24
Novelist
Teacher
Writer
Alexander Sandy McCall Smith
Modern
Bonds
Society
Collapse
Social
Nightmare
Sense
Destructive
Together
Happenings
Things
Happening
People
Losing
Nightmares
Lead
Bind

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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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Botswana is actually very peaceful. It's democratic. It never was in debt. They've been fortunate, they've had diamonds.
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And that, in a way, was the burden of being a philosopher: one knew what one had to do, but it was so often the opposite of what one really wanted to do.
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It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought you down to earth. That gave you a reason for going on. Pumpkin.
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But don't we often lie to people we love, or not tell them things, precisely because we love them?
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A very powerful theme in fiction is that of loss.
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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.
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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.
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There was a distinction between lying and telling half-truths, but it was a very narrow one.
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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.
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We are all tempted, Mma. We are all tempted when it comes to cake.
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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!
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It is sometimes easier to be happy if you don't know everything.
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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.
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We don't forget.... Our heads may be small, but they are as full of memories as the sky may sometimes be full of swarming bees, thousands and thousands of memories, of smells, of places, of little things that happened to us and which came back, unexpectedly, to remind us who we are.
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I am easily persuaded to continue to have fun.
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Painters aren't expected to paint bleak pictures, are they?
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I write four or five a books a year. That means that I usually have one on the go. I am fortunate in being able to write quickly - 1000 words an hour.
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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.
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I am often thanked by people for inventing the term traditionally built. The people who give me thanks for this are often traditionally built themselves.
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