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I see no point in being despondent. We might as well enjoy ourselves during our brief tenure of this life.

Alexander McCall Smith

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Alexander McCall Smith
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: August 24
Novelist
Teacher
Writer
Alexander Sandy McCall Smith
Point
Enjoy
Wells
Might
Well
Life
Despondent
Tenure
Brief

More quotes by 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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I'm interested in character and dialogue and exchange of ideas.
Alexander McCall Smith
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I think that we've made great moral progress in the second half of the 20th century in many respects, and particularly in relation to human rights but I think that we are losing sight of some of the values of concern for others, and self-respect and respect for others.
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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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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If you lose sight of the smaller accomplishments , you end up with an imbalance in your life.
Alexander McCall Smith
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When you allow people to do what they wish, then that is what they do. They stop doing the things they need to do.
Alexander McCall Smith
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It is sometimes easier to be happy if you don't know everything.
Alexander McCall Smith
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There are many women whose lives would be immeasurably improved by widowhood, but one should not always point that out.
Alexander McCall Smith
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We are all tempted, Mma. We are all tempted when it comes to cake.
Alexander McCall Smith
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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
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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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That of all people, it should be him that took her aback. That the heart should settle on somebody like him that surprised her. But she was so certain about it, so certain.
Alexander McCall Smith
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Painters aren't expected to paint bleak pictures, are they?
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
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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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It is not enough just to identify a problem there are plenty of people who were very skilled at pointing out what was wrong with the world, but they were not always so adept at working out how these things could be righted.
Alexander McCall Smith
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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
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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
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To lose a child ... was something that could end one's world. One could never get back to how it was before. The stars went out. The moon disappeared. The birds became silent.
Alexander McCall Smith