Alexander McCall Smith
Alexander McCall Smith
R. Alexander "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE, is a British writer and Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. In the late 20th century, McCall Smith became a respected expert on medical law and bioethics and served on British and international committees concerned with these issues...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth24 August 1948
sea rivers sight
The Okavango Delta is an astonishing sight: the great Okavango River, rather than flow towards the sea, flows inland, into the sands of the Kalahari.
thinking forever littles
We think the world is ours forever, but we are little more than squatters.
new-york awful wonderful
New York is a wonderful place to be up, an awful place to be down.
opposites way philosopher
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.
mind possibility come-up
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.
might mystery homecoming
Each of us is born into our own mysteries...but the mystery of another might just take us in and embrace us. And then what a sense of homecoming, of belonging!
emotional stories want
When we love others, we naturally want to talk about them, we want to show them off, like emotional trophies. We invest them with a power to do to others what they do to us; a vain hope, as the lovers of others are rarely of much interest to us. But we listen in patience, as friends must, and as Isabel now did, refraining from comment, other than to encourage the release of the story and the attendant confession of human frailty and hope.
differences people work-out
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.
has-beens
Everything has been something before.
agency typewriters mma
Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill. These were its assets: a tiny white van, two desks, two chairs, a telephone, and an old typewriter. Then there was a teapot, in which Mma Ramotswe – the only lady private detective in Botswana – brewed redbush tea. And three mugs – one for herself, one for her secretary, and one for the client. What else does a detective agency really need? Detective agencies rely on human intuition and intelligence, both of which Mma Ramotswe had in abundance. No inventory would ever include those, of course.
simple mma answers
Simple questions--and simple answers--were what we needed in life. That was what Mma Ramotswe believed. Yes.
tiny earth persons
I am just a tiny person in Africa, but there is a place for me, and for everybody, to sit down on this earth and touch it and call it their own.
paint painter expected
Painters aren't expected to paint bleak pictures, are they?
asking characters people wherever
Wherever I go in the world, people all know about Scotland Street and are always asking me about what's going to happen to the characters next.