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Painters aren't expected to paint bleak pictures, are they?

Alexander McCall Smith

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Alexander McCall Smith
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: August 24
Novelist
Teacher
Writer
Alexander Sandy McCall Smith
Painters
Painter
Pictures
Expected
Paint
Aren
Bleak

More quotes by 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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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.
Alexander McCall Smith
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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
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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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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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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.
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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Botswana is actually very peaceful. It's democratic. It never was in debt. They've been fortunate, they've had diamonds.
Alexander McCall Smith
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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.
Alexander McCall Smith
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But you cannot expect every writer to dwell on human suffering. I think my books do deal with grave issues. People who say they are too positive probably havent read them.
Alexander McCall Smith
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My wife Elizabeth and I started The Really Terrible Orchestra for people like us who are pretty hopeless musicians who would like to play in an orchestra. It has been a great success. We give performances weve become the most famous bad orchestra in the world.
Alexander McCall Smith
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I've also long since realized that the way to really engage children is to give out prizes it's amazing how it concentrates their minds.
Alexander McCall Smith
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Edinburgh used to be a haughty city.
Alexander McCall Smith
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If you lose sight of the smaller accomplishments , you end up with an imbalance in your life.
Alexander McCall Smith
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Everything has been something before.
Alexander McCall Smith
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I write four books a year. I'm very fortunate that I write quickly around 3,500 words a day. Being strict about delineating my writing time and personal life, as well as keeping distractions at bay, is the only way I can accomplish this.
Alexander McCall Smith
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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.
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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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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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