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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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Alexander McCall Smith
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: August 24
Novelist
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Alexander Sandy McCall Smith
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Things
People
Allow
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More quotes by Alexander McCall Smith
Many of my books are written from a female perspective. I rather enjoy the take that women have on the world, and certainly I enjoy the conversations that women have.
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
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
Antonia was very conscious of the corrosive power of envy and felt that it was this emotion, more than any other, which lay behind human unhappiness. People did not realize how widespread envy was.
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
A very powerful theme in fiction is that of loss.
Alexander McCall Smith
I am capable of being idle.
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
Dogs are in on our human silliness lions are not.
Alexander McCall Smith
My parents were very supportive and always encouraged us. My father was a gentle, nice man. My mother was quite a colourful character and a keen reader who encouraged me to write.
Alexander McCall Smith
Well, Id say all of us are a combination of moods and emotions. In my day to day life I dont go around skipping, but at times one can feel sheer exhilarating joy at the world.
Alexander McCall Smith
Life consists of positive and negative features, and I think that it is permissible to write about both.
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
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
It seems to me that we're in danger of losing sight of certain basic civic values in society by allowing the growth of a whole generation of people who really have no sense of attachment to society.
Alexander McCall Smith
There was a distinction between lying and telling half-truths, but it was a very narrow one.
Alexander McCall Smith
I am easily persuaded to continue to have fun.
Alexander McCall Smith
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
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
Simple questions--and simple answers--were what we needed in life. That was what Mma Ramotswe believed. Yes.
Alexander McCall Smith
