603 Quotes by Alexander McCall Smith

And that, in a way, was the burden of being a philosopher: one knew what one had to do, but it was so often the opposite of what one really wanted to do.

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

Our minds can come up with the most entertaining possibilities, if we let them. But most of the time, we keep them under far too close a check.

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

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.

It was the same with friendship. Disagreement between friends and spouses, too had to be carefully handled. If the time you spent with friends was consumed by disagreement, then there was no room for the essence of friendship, which was a sharing of the world. And that sharing involved seeing things the same way, or at least seeing things through the eyes of the friend.

It's through the small things that we develop our moral imagination, so that we can understand the sufferings of others.

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

I cannot see myself in a new car. I am a tiny white van person. That is what i want!