Quote

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

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
Perhaps
Pathology
Novel
Dysfunction
Example
Slice
Present
Affirmative
Sort
Presents
Social
Addresses
Every
Mines
Noir
Life
Mine
Upbeat

More quotes by Alexander McCall Smith

Image
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
Image
Everything has been something before.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
Edinburgh used to be a haughty city.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
I see no point in being despondent. We might as well enjoy ourselves during our brief tenure of this life.
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
It is sometimes easier to be happy if you don't know everything.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Our minds can come up with the most entertaining possibilities, if we let them. But most of the time, we keep them under far too close a check.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
Reality television, which turned its eye on people who were doing nothing but being themselves, was the perfect expression of this trend [of narcissism]. Let's look at ourselves, it said. Aren't we fascinating?
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
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
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
Image
We are all tempted, Mma. We are all tempted when it comes to cake.
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
Small things may be important to us to be a sometime anything is sometimes something.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
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
Image
Lou knew that joy unshared was a halved emotion, just as sadness and loss, when borne alone, were often doubled.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
She was made for untidy rooms and rumpled beds.
Alexander McCall Smith
Image
Talking about pumpkins doesn't make them grow.
Alexander McCall Smith