603 Quotes by Alexander McCall Smith

No matter what precautions were taken, socks disappeared into a Bermuda Triangle for socks, a swirling vortex that swallowed one sock at a time, leaving its partner stranded.

We think that we can fix our lives by taking some simple step, but it’s not like that. Most problems need lots of sticking plasters. They need coaxing and massaging and looking at from all sorts of different angles.

We do not talk about wise men or wise ladies any more, she reflected; their place had been taken, it seemed, by all sorts of shallow people – actors and the like – who were only too ready to pronounce on all sorts of subjects.

Look at every territorial dispute you care to mention. Northern Ireland, for instance.” “Religion in that case,” Jamie ventured. “Not just. Religion was the badge of identity, but it wasn’t really about whether you went to Mass or to a tub-thumping Protestant chapel. It was a result of the movement of people. The Protestant planters – many of them Scots – replaced the native Irish, remember? Movement of people again.

As a writer I’ve learned certain lessons. One of them is to be careful about how you put a view, and to bear in mind how easily and readily you’ll be misinterpreted.

The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, because if you left it to them to work out for themselves, they would never bother. They would just find out what was best for them, and then they would call that the right thing. That’s how most people thought.

I’m interested in character and dialogue and exchange of ideas.

I write four or five a books a year. That means that I usually have one on the go. I am fortunate in being able to write quickly – 1000 words an hour.

Not forgiving was like scratching at a sore to keep the healing scab from forming.