603 Quotes by Alexander McCall Smith

The sharing of a book is a statement – a message of affection that is also an act of self-revelation. Join my club, it says. Come and sit beside me.

Simple questions – and simple answers – were what we needed in life. That was what Mma Ramotswe believed. Yes.

It was a good place to sit, and listen, under a sky that had seen so much and heard so much that one more wicked deed would surely make no difference. Sins, thought Mma Ramotswe, are darker and more powerful when contemplated within confining walls. Out in the open, under such a sky as this, misdeeds were reduced to their natural proportions – small, mean things that could be faced quite openly, sorted, and folded away.

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

Do not act meanly, do not be unkind, because the time for setting things right may pass before your heart changes course. Isabel Dalhousie.

We can’t afford to be without God,” Feliks continued. “Even if he doesn’t exist, we have to hold on to him. Because if we don’t, then how are we to convince ourselves that we have to go on with this fight? If you take God out of it, then right and justice become small, human things. And weak things, too.

It is my duty to help them solve the mysteries in their lives. That is what I am called to do.

There were plenty of people who did not really believe in God, but who wanted to believe in him, and said that they did. Some people said that these people were foolish, that they were hypocritical, but Mma Ramotswe was not so sure about that. If something, or somebody, could help you to get through life, to lead a life that was good and purposeful, did it matter all that much if that thing or that person did not exist? She thought it did not – not in the slightest bit. BY.

One of the most destructive things that’s happening in modern society is that we are losing our sense of the bonds that bind people together – which can lead to nightmares of social collapse.