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 But he'll never be fully recognised, because Scots literature these days is all about complaining an...
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 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 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