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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.

Alexander McCall Smith

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Alexander McCall Smith
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: August 24
Novelist
Teacher
Writer
Alexander Sandy McCall Smith
Personal
Trainers
Either
Guru
Wonderful
Worker
Social
Appreciated
Would
Received
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Necessarily
People
Workers
Advice
Trainer

More quotes by 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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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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Manners are the basic building blocks of civil society.
Alexander McCall Smith
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Talking about pumpkins doesn't make them grow.
Alexander McCall Smith
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Lou knew that joy unshared was a halved emotion, just as sadness and loss, when borne alone, were often doubled.
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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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
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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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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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There is room in history for all of us.
Alexander McCall Smith
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Who can't like pigs? They're wonderful creatures! I've always liked pigs.
Alexander McCall Smith
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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
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Simple questions--and simple answers--were what we needed in life. That was what Mma Ramotswe believed. Yes.
Alexander McCall Smith
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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.
Alexander McCall Smith
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I enjoy women's conversation, and I think that helps me to describe them in fiction.
Alexander McCall Smith
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The telling of a story, like virtually everything in this life, was always made all the easier by a cup of tea.
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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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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I have always taken the view that one should never hold against a man anything he says after twelve o'clock at night or after a glass or two of anything.
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