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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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Alexander McCall Smith
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: August 24
Novelist
Teacher
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Alexander Sandy McCall Smith
Right
Scene
Focus
Lines
Grows
Getting
Firsts
Organically
Book
Overall
First
Plot
More quotes by Alexander McCall Smith
Any author of fiction will tell you that characters don't need to be told what to do.
Alexander McCall Smith
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
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
There are old mycologists and there are bold mycologists, but there are no old, bold mycologists.
Alexander McCall Smith
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
Botswana is actually very peaceful. It's democratic. It never was in debt. They've been fortunate, they've had diamonds.
Alexander McCall Smith
I have three older sisters, so we were a reasonably large family and, in general, a happy one.
Alexander McCall Smith
Everything has been something before.
Alexander McCall Smith
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
But we make such mistakes all the time, all through our lives. Wisdom, I suppose, is seeing this and acting upon it before it is too late. But it is often too late, isn't it? - and those things that we should have said are unsaid, and remain unsaid for ever.
Alexander McCall Smith
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
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
Some of my characters are a mixture of various aspects of people I have met. others are pure invention.
Alexander McCall Smith
Gracious acceptance is an art - an art which most never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder than giving.... Accepting another person's gift is allowing him to express his feelings for you.
Alexander McCall Smith
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
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
Every small wrong, every minor act of cruelty, every act of petty bullying was symbolic of a greater wrong. And if we ignored these small things, then did it not blunt our outrage over the larger wrongs?
Alexander McCall Smith
Who can't like pigs? They're wonderful creatures! I've always liked pigs.
Alexander McCall Smith
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.
Alexander McCall Smith
We think the world is ours forever, but we are little more than squatters.
Alexander McCall Smith
