Quotes by Alexander McCall Smith

About Alexander McCall Smith:

R. Alexander is a British writer and Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. In the late twentieth century, McCall Smith became a respected expert on medical law and bioethics and served on British and international committees concerned with these issues. He has since become internationally known as a writer of fiction. He is most widely known as the creator of the The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. "McCall" is not a middle name: his surname is "McCall Smith".
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The house seemed so different at night. Everything was in its correct place, of course, but somehow the furniture seemed more angular and the pictures on the wall more one-dimensional. She remembered somebody saying that at night we are all strangers...

Alexander McCall Smith

Now constipation was quite a different matter...It would be dreadful for the whole world to know about troubles of that nature. She felt terribly sorry for people who suffered from constipation, and she knew that there were many who did. There were p...

Alexander McCall Smith

There was a teapot, in which Mma Ramotswe -- the only lady private detective in Botwana -- brewed tea. And three mugs -- one for herself, one for her secretary, and one for the client. What else does a detective agency really need?

Alexander McCall Smith

...they are dazzled by all the money that they are being offered. That is what money does, Mma Ramotswe—you must have seen that. Sometime we need to look the other way when people put money in front of our noses. We have to look at the other things...

Alexander McCall Smith

Men are very sensitive, Mma Makutsi. You would not always think it to look at them, but they are. They do not like you to point out that they are wrong, even when they are. That is the way things are, Mma--it just is.

Alexander McCall Smith

Now the tea began to do its work- as it always did- and the world that only a few minutes previously had seemed so bleak started to seem less so.

Alexander McCall Smith

Isabel is looking at several collections of research journals. 'She would understand the issues if she chose to open one of the volumes, but she knew that there were conversations within which she would never have the time to participate in. And that...

Alexander McCall Smith

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

Alexander McCall Smith

Moral beauty existed as clearly as any other form of beauty and perhaps that was where we could find the God who was so vividly, and sometimes bizarrely, described in our noisy religious explanations. It was an intriguing thought, as it meant that a ...

Alexander McCall Smith

International business, once allowed to stalk uncontrolled, killed the local, the small, the quirky.

Alexander McCall Smith

Matthew knew that phrenology was nonsense, and yet, years later, he found himself making judgments similar to those made by his father; slippery people looked slippery; they really did. And how we become like our parents! How their scorned advice - b...

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 realise how widespread envy was.

Alexander McCall Smith

Gracious acceptance is an art - an art which most never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder than giving.... Accepting another person's gift is allowing him to...

Alexander McCall Smith

Will you be my friend?” Bertie asked. And then added: “Just for Paris. You don’t have to be my friend forever – just for Paris.

Alexander McCall Smith

Bertie stared at his mother. She spoils things, he thought. All she ever does is spoil things. He had not started this conversation, and it was not his fault that they were now talking about Grey Owl. He sounded rather a nice man to Bertie. Any why s...

Alexander McCall Smith

Go to any small village anywhere in the world, and see what they remember. Everything. It's all there -- passed on like a precious piece of information, some secret imparted from one who knew to one who yearns to know. Taken good care of.

Alexander McCall Smith

So it was perfectly possible that there were men who liked shopping, men who understood exactly what it was all about, but Mma Ramotwe had yet to meet such a man. Maybe they existed elsewhere - in France, perhaps - but they did not seem to be much in...

Alexander McCall Smith

It is hard, she thought, it is hard for us to think of people who dislike us because none of us, in our heart, believes that we deserve the hatred of others.

Alexander McCall Smith

We put on our walls what we think is beautiful or inspiring, and if others think that it is manufactured or shallow, then they need not have it on their walls.

Alexander McCall Smith

Irene gasped. "Have you taken leave of your senses, Stuart?" she hissed. "Have you?" Stuart closed his eyes. "No," he said. "Au contraire." It was strong language for the Edinburgh New Town, but he had to say it. "Don't au contraire me," said Irene. ...

Alexander McCall Smith

The forges of friendship, thought Angus, may be busy ones, but their dorrs are always open.

Alexander McCall Smith

Author Bio

  • NameAlexander McCall Smith
  • DescriptionBritish writer
  • BornAugust 24, 1948
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionWriter
  • WorksThe No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
  • AwardsCommander Of The Order Of The British Empire; Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize