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
certainly country entirely good high paint painting picture pretended realistic regard
I've certainly always had a very high regard for Botswana and so I paint a very good picture of the country and I've never pretended to be painting an entirely realistic picture.
books deny entirely given perfectly picture positive present sought written
My Botswana books are positive, and I've never really sought to deny that. They are positive. They present a very positive picture of the country. And I think that that is perfectly defensible given that there is so much written about Africa which is entirely negative.
tea stories cups
The telling of a story, like virtually everything in this life, was always made all the easier by a cup of tea.
inspirational-life years childhood
You can go through life and make new friends every year - every month practically - but there was never any substitute for those friendships of childhood that survive into adult years. Those are the ones in which we are bound to one another with hoops of steel.
gratitude thinking government
Most people want nothing to happen. That is the problem with governments these days. They want to do things all the time; they are always very busy thinking of what things they can do next. That is not what people want. People want to be left alone to look after their cattle.
thinking rights sight
I think that we've made great moral progress in the second half of the 20th century in many respects, and particularly in relation to human rights but I think that we are losing sight of some of the values of concern for others, and self-respect and respect for others.
eye reality expression
Reality television, which turned its eye on people who were doing nothing but being themselves, was the perfect expression of this trend [of narcissism]. Let's look at ourselves, it said. Aren't we fascinating?
block thinking concern-for-others
What I really like investigating in my novels: what is it that makes an intimate society, that makes a society in which moral concern for others will be possible? Part of that I think are manners and ritual. We tried to get rid of manners, we tried to abolish manners in the '60s. Manners were very, very old-fashioned and un-cool. And of course we didn't realise that manners are the building blocks of proper moral relationships between people.
thinking finals analysis
It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought you down to earth. That gave you a reason for going on. Pumpkin.
joy understanding finding-yourself
Be content with who you are and where you are, and do whatever you can do to bring to others such contentment, and joy, and understanding that you have managed to find yourself.
pigs wonderful creatures
Who can't like pigs? They're wonderful creatures! I've always liked pigs.
boredom people london
Do you realise that people die of boredom in London suburbs? It's the second biggest cause of death amongs the English in general. Sheer boredom...
envy people unhappy
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 realize how widespread envy was.
children giving long
I've also long since realized that the way to really engage children is to give out prizes; it's amazing how it concentrates their minds.