Alexander McCall Smith quote: "But he'll never be fully recognised, because Scots literature these days is all about complaining and moaning and being injured in one's soul."

Manners are the basic building blocks of civil society.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Gracious acceptance is an art - an art which most never bother to cultivate. We think that we have t...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Morality is for everybody, and this means that the views of more than one person are needed to creat...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

I would certainly never consider myself a Renaissance Man; I'm not fit to look at the dust from ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

New York is a wonderful place to be up, an awful place to be down.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

One of the most destructive things that's happening in modern society is that we are losing our ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Oh I love gadgets and I pride myself on keeping at the cutting edge of technology.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Mma Ramotswe sighed. 'We are all tempted, Mma. We are all tempted when it comes to cake.'

ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Leave them,” said Isabel. “Jamie can iron them himself. It’s very therapeutic for men to iron....
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

The telling of a story, like virtually everything in this life, was always made all the easier by a ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

The Okavango Delta is an astonishing sight: the great Okavango River, rather than flow towards the s...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Edinburgh used to be a haughty city.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

I've certainly always had a very high regard for Botswana and so I paint a very good picture of ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

You do not have to ladle on the impasto to make a point about human frailty or ambitions.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Fiction is able to encompass books that are bleak and which dwell on the manifold and terrible probl...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

You can go through life and make new friends every year - every month practically - but there was ne...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

The local community is very important in one's life; the feelings of identification with a place...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

You should have seen him,” she said. “A real ladies’ man. Stuff in his hair. Dark glasses. Fan...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

But you cannot expect every writer to dwell on human suffering. I think my books do deal with grave ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

If you lose sight of the smaller accomplishments, you end up with an imbalance in your life.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

I have three older sisters, so we were a reasonably large family and, in general, a happy one.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

It is sometimes easier to be happy if you don't know everything.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

As a writer I've learned certain lessons. One of them is to be careful about how you put a view,...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

That was what counted, she told herself: those unexpected moments of appreciation, unanticipated gli...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

So it was in Botswana, almost everywhere; ties of kinship, no matter how attenuated by distance or t...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

We find what we are looking for in life, her father had once said to her, which was true—if you lo...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

His life was unrecorded; who is there to write down the lives of ordinary people?
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

That of all people, it should be him; that took her aback. That the heart should settle on somebody ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

He had been thinking of how landscape moulds a language. It was impossible to imagine these hills gi...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

I think people in Botswana are pleased that my books paint a positive picture of their lives and por...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Irene gasped. "Have you taken leave of your senses, Stuart?" she hissed. "Have you?"
Stuart clo...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Teachers were not allowed to beat children as they did in the past, although, Mma Ramotswe reflected...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

…people decided what they thought and would not be moved, not even by the most patient, the most r...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Mma Makutsi had overheard this remark and had been so cross that her glasses misted over; that was a...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

She hoped that her baby was happy and would be waiting for her when she herself left Botswana and we...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Africa was full of people in need of help and there had to be a limit. You simply could not help eve...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

…products of soulless machines and relentless globalization…
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

There were some people, it seemed, who were incapable of being pleasant about anything. Of course, t...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

She was made for untidy rooms and rumpled beds.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Regular maps have few surprises: their contour lines reveal where the Andes are, and are reasonably ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

She had argued for a broad interpretation, which imposed a duty to answer questions truthfully, and ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

There was a distinction between lying and telling half-truths, but it was a very narrow one.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

What do the Texans say? All hat, no cattle.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

It was hard to disappear completely in Botswana, where there were fewer than two million people and ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

We can't have moral obligations to every single person in this world. We have moral obligations to t...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

...But although the rules are vague
And widely disregarded now
Some precepts remain: live ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Whisky nosers, as they called themselves, eschewed what they saw as the pretentiousness of wine voca...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

She remembered love, though, and a feeling of warmth. It was like remembering light, or the glow tha...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

However she redefined herself, that part of one that made for the core of the self, that part that w...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

every man has a map in his heart of his own country and that the heart will never allow you to forge...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Putting Mr. Polopetsi in charge of the investigation is like putting a rabbit in charge of the airpo...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Well, I'd say all of us are a combination of moods and emotions. In my day to day life I don'...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

It's through the small things that we develop our moral imagination, so that we can understand t...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow…There must be reasons why the leaves decay.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

My wife Elizabeth and I started The Really Terrible Orchestra for people like us who are pretty hope...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

My parents were very supportive and always encouraged us. My father was a gentle, nice man. My mothe...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Every novel presents a slice of life. A noir policier for example presents one slice, one that perha...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Any author of fiction will tell you that characters don't need to be told what to do.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

The point of opera is that people are moved by the emotions and music.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

I've always had a creative urge and I get immense satisfaction from creating something because i...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Botswana is actually very peaceful. It's democratic. It never was in debt. They've been fort...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Serial novels have an unexpected effect; they hook the writer as well as the reader.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Who can't like pigs? They're wonderful creatures! I've always liked pigs.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

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

It seems to me that we're in danger of losing sight of certain basic civic values in society by ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

I'm very interested in tea. I wouldn't mind being involved in some aspect of the tea industr...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

That my philosophy of life is, as far as possible, one of enjoyment. I'm not nihilistic.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

As a writer, I have readers who will have a range of political views. I don't think they look to...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Now the tea began to do its work- as it always did- and the world that only a few minutes previously...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Shall I make you a cup of tea? He asked. It was the classic response to crisis practiced throughout ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

There was a teapot, in which Mma Ramotswe -- the only lady private detective in Botwana -- brewed te...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

So the small things came into their own: small acts of helping others, if one could; small ways of m...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

The previously unloved may find it hard to believe that they are now loved; that is such a miracle, ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Do you realise that people die of boredom in London suburbs? It's the second biggest cause of death ...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

And then the second thing you have to do is go and see your son. That is a duty of love, Andrew. It'...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

The trouble with Grace, she thought, is that she is so literal. But that was the trouble with most p...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Myth is a cloud based upon a shadow based upon the movement of the breeze.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Myth could be as sustaining as reality - sometimes even more so.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Well, that's the important thing, isn't it, Mma? To feel happiness, and then to remember it.
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

And if things go on as they are, in a few months the men will have cut all the trees down and that w...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Why not imagine a talk with a pumpkin? Why not imagine going off for a drive with a friendly pumpkin...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Can you forgive her? Can you do that?
There was no response.
Because if you can start to f...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

No matter what precautions were taken, socks disappeared into a Bermuda Triangle for socks, a swirli...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Writers just play out their fantasies in their books. They are often very unstable, tricky people, B...
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

A man doesn't plant a tree for himself. He plants it for posterity.
ALEXANDER SMITH

Your death and my death are mainly of importance to ourselves. The black plumes will be stripped off...
ALEXANDER SMITH

A man's real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.
ALEXANDER SMITH

The sea complains upon a thousand shores.
ALEXANDER SMITH

A man gazing on the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road.
ALEXANDER SMITH

I go into my library, and all history unrolls before me. I breathe the morning air of the world whil...
ALEXANDER SMITH

Every man's road in life is marked by the grave of his personal likings.
ALEXANDER SMITH

If you wish to make a man look noble, your best course is to kill him. What superiority he may have ...
ALEXANDER SMITH

Everything is sweetened by risk.
ALEXANDER SMITH

To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.
ALEXANDER SMITH

If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in frankness.
ALEXANDER SMITH

Sweet April's tears, Dead on the hem of May.
ALEXANDER SMITH

Every man's road in life is marked by the graves of his personal likings.
ALEXANDER SMITH

[Memory is] a man's real possession...In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.
ALEXANDER SMITH

The pale child, Eve, leading her mother, Night.
ALEXANDER SMITH

If the egotist is weak, his egotism is worthless. If the egotist is strong, acute, full of distincti...
ALEXANDER SMITH

I would rather be remembered by a song than by a victory.
ALEXANDER SMITH

A great man is the man who does something for the first time.
ALEXANDER SMITH

Every man's road in life is marked by the graves of his personal liking.
ALEXANDER SMITH

We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once.
ALEXANDER SMITH

The saddest thing that befalls a soul is when it loses faith in God and woman.
ALEXANDER SMITH

There is no ghost so difficult to lay as the ghost of an injury.
ALEXANDER SMITH

In life there is nothing more unexpected and surprising than the arrivals and departures of pleasure...
ALEXANDER SMITH

The dead keep their secrets, and in a while we shall be as wise as they - and as taciturn.
ALEXANDER SMITH

A man's real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.
ALEXANDER SMITH

I go into my library and all history unrolls before me.
ALEXANDER SMITH

The world is not so much in need of new thoughts as that when thought grows old and worn with usage ...
ALEXANDER SMITH

Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.
ALEXANDER SMITH

To sit for one's portrait is like being present at one's own creation.
ALEXANDER SMITH

We bury love; Forgetfulness grows over it like grass: That is a thing to weep for, not the dead.
ALEXANDER SMITH

Christmas is the day that holds all time together.
ALEXANDER SMITH

Trees are your best antiques
ALEXANDER SMITH

How deeply seated in the human heart is the liking for gardens and gardening.
ALEXANDER SMITH

We bury love; Forgetfulness grows over it like grass: That is a thing to weep for, not the dead
ALEXANDER SMITH

There is no ghost so difficult to lay as the ghost of an injury
ALEXANDER SMITH

Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition. -Alexander Sm...
ALEXANDER SMITH

Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.
ALEXANDER SMITH

Trees are your best antiques.
ALEXANDER SMITH

We twain have met like the ships upon the sea, Who behold an hour's converse, so short, so sweet: ...
ALEXANDER SMITH

We bury love, Forgetfulness grows over it like grass; That is a thing to weep for, not the dea...
ALEXANDER SMITH

The sun was down, And all the west was paved with sullen fire. I cried, "Behold! the barren b...
ALEXANDER SMITH

If you wish to preserve your secret wrap it up in frankness.
ALEXANDER SMITH

A man doesn't plant a tree for himself. He plants it for posterity.
ALEXANDER SMITH

We bury love; Forgetfulness grows over it like grass: That is a thing to weep for, not the dead
ALEXANDER SMITH

Looking forward into an empty year strikes one with a certain awe, because one finds therein no reco...
ALEXANDER SMITH

Stirling, like a huge brooch, clasps Highlands and Lowlands together.
ALEXANDER SMITH

Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide, and she hides it well.
ALEXANDER SMITH

In winter, when the dismal rain comes down in slanting lines, and wind, that grand old harper, smote...
ALEXANDER SMITH

Trifles make up the happiness or the misery of human life
ALEXANDER SMITH

The dining hall is the best place to meet people. I know it's hard to do.
ALEXANDER SMITH

If you do your fair day's work, you are certain to get your fair day's wage - in praise or pudding, ...
ALEXANDER SMITH

Every man's road in life is marked by the graves of his personal liking
ALEXANDER SMITH

The man who in this world can keep the whiteness of his soul is not likely to lose it in any other.
ALEXANDER SMITH

In life there is nothing more unexpected and surprising than the arrivals and departures of pleasure...
ALEXANDER SMITH

Trifles make up the happiness or the misery of human life.
ALEXANDER SMITH

When you're scared - and I mean really scared, not just hearing a noise in the night, or standing to...
ALEXANDER GORDON SMITH

When you're locked up in here for life, you learn to welcome the little freedoms.
ALEXANDER GORDON SMITH

I'm a great admirer of cartoons, because I can't do cartoons.
BRUCE MCCALL

You can parody almost anything.
BRUCE MCCALL

I'm a great admirer of cartoons, because I can't do cartoons.
BRUCE MCCALL

(Viagra) is exposing how many men admit being dysfunctional,
BRUCE MCCALL

The name itself seems to have something. The very word has a ring to it.
BRUCE MCCALL

Mayhem achieved, boredom relieved
BRUCE MCCALL

We must have seen 600 clients and agencies before we launched the paper. We talked them through it -...
CAROLYN MCCALL

Our integrated marketing and retail strategy aimed to put the Guardian in the hands of as many peopl...
CAROLYN MCCALL

[Because advertisements generally cost less in tabloids than in broadsheets, the paper has focused o...
CAROLYN MCCALL

Our September ABC is a very strong performance which has exceeded our expectations.
CAROLYN MCCALL

Two weeks ago we celebrated the highest ever sale in the Guardian's 184-year history. Seven days lat...
CAROLYN MCCALL

Extraordinary measures were required and I realize that not all of these steps were popular.
TOM MCCALL

I'm not sure I expected us to be this deep at the beginning of the season. We've got a lot of player...
AMELIA MCCALL

The exciting thing to me is I don't think we've peaked yet. When we get every aspect of our game wor...
AMELIA MCCALL

It's great to see Jennie have a game like this. We had confidence in her taking those shots. When yo...
AMELIA MCCALL

If it was our third year in a row in the cellar, then I might be upset. We'll keep doing this. A few...
MIKE MCCALL

She has absolutely just taken this to a whole new level. She deserves a lot of credit.
BETH MCCALL

I tried to tell them they should pick someone else. I know nothing about golf. I've never even hit a...
BETH MCCALL

We realized that we really had to make the Classic one of the major focuses of our fundraising. We r...
BETH MCCALL

The company continues to insist on concessions with no rhyme or reason. There?s been give-and-take o...
DAVID MCCALL

You name it, I took it. Cocaine, ecstasy, even heroin ? although I never injected... I had a job so ...
DAVINA MCCALL

Straight is the line of duty; Curved is the line of beauty; Follow the straight line, thou shalt see...
WILLIAM MCCALL

This is the worst ran department in the state of Tennessee. Swear to God it is.
BOYCE MCCALL

You don't want your children playing out in the yard because those heavy metals are horrible.
BOYCE MCCALL

Dust settles every night. We have a black car. We get up the next morning and it looks golden.
BOYCE MCCALL

If Hitch were a person, he'd be Mother Theresa or Gandhi or someone who treated all living creatures...
MCCALL HOYLE

It's not about sour grapes. It's about a fair shot.
ED MCCALL

The Talmud states, "Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly now, love merc...
BRIDGES MCCALL

To pull this together in such a short time, and for the public to respond so wholeheartedly is amazi...
DAVINA MCCALL

I'm afraid you have to leave us -
DAVINA MCCALL

They're all... looking... a little... nervous right now
DAVINA MCCALL

I knew it was really, really popular when my granny told me she watched it, and was addicted. When y...
DAVINA MCCALL

The people who go into that house are a cross section of British culture. They're not freaks.
DAVINA MCCALL

He's such a lovely fellow, that Lester Piggott.
DAVINA MCCALL

It's easy to present - out with a very, very rowdy crowd talking to the camera,
DAVINA MCCALL

I can't believe you are showing no remorse.
DAVINA MCCALL

We knew coming in that this would be a litmus test for our team. Who better to see where you're at t...
JIM MCCALL

Our labor agreement was one that the membership overwhelmingly ratified, and it turned out to be a p...
DAVID MCCALL

Do not wait and hope to be discovered...make yourself so you cannot be denied!
JAMIE MCCALL

We've eight players involved in the panel, and that would be a big lump out of our squad,
MARK MCCALL

It's a chance for us to show off to these companies.
DEAN MCCALL

We are just geeks who want to pull the two cities together and pool our resources.
DEAN MCCALL

The project (we) are working on is a community based, public-need project. The people we are focusin...
DEAN MCCALL

See it, learn it, do it ALL.
JAMIE MCCALL

He was all right in high school. Girls liked him. He was cool.
DON MCCALL

We rode bikes together sometimes.
DON MCCALL

Some of the guys who come in my barber shop said they saw him and he was saying to come down to the ...
DON MCCALL

As a coach, you remain optimistic. You go into every battle, every contest, thinking if we do what's...
ED MCCALL

You're playing against a stacked deck. I think that's all we're asking for was a fair shot for our c...
ED MCCALL

It wasn't about kicking them out. This was not a proposal made out of sour grapes.
ED MCCALL

We've got mobile homes rolled into mobile homes. We've got mobile homes blown into houses. It's all ...
DAVID MCCALL

Our labor agreement was one that the membership overwhelmingly ratified, and it turned out to be a p...
DAVID MCCALL

There's an advantage to belonging to an international. One obvious thing (affecting union members) i...
DAVID MCCALL

There's an advantage to belonging to an international.
DAVID MCCALL

We've broadened people's responsibilities, and we are far more productive than we use to be.
DAVID MCCALL

Many of these people have never, ever had a livable wage. It will also give them benefits like paid ...
DAVID MCCALL

We do not want people to be here. We want them out of harm's way.
FRANK MCCALL

You never say never. People in Florida never saw anything like [Hurricane] Andrew.
FRANK MCCALL

But he'll never be fully recognised, because Scots literature these days is all about complaining and moaning and being injured in one's soul.

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Alexander McCall Smith

But he'll never be fully recognised, because Scots literature these days is all about complaining and moaning and being injured in one's soul.

Alexander McCall Smith

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