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
giving people thanks
I am often thanked by people for inventing the term traditionally built. The people who give me thanks for this are often traditionally built themselves.
inspirational-life animal land
A life without stories would be no life at all. And stories bound us, did they not, one to another, the living to the dead, people to animals, people to the land?
book perspective world
Many of my books are written from a female perspective. I rather enjoy the take that women have on the world, and certainly I enjoy the conversations that women have.
widowhood would-be should
There are many women whose lives would be immeasurably improved by widowhood, but one should not always point that out.
creating order creative
I've always had a creative urge and I get immense satisfaction from creating something because it feels like I'm making sense of the world and imposing order on it.
mma cake temptation
We are all tempted, Mma. We are all tempted when it comes to cake.
thinking moments
How many of us are happy to be exactly where we are at any moment?...only the completely happy think that they are in the correct place.
love heart people
That of all people, it should be him; that took her aback. That the heart should settle on somebody like him; that surprised her. But she was so certain about it, so certain.
sight accomplishment imbalance
If you lose sight of the smaller accomplishments , you end up with an imbalance in your life.
different old-love illness
It's a different sort of love taht puts up with illness. Old love.
heavyweights persons prepared
Do not take on a traditionally built person unless you are prepared for a heavyweight bout.
philosophy life-is life-philosophy
That my philosophy of life is, as far as possible, one of enjoyment. I'm not nihilistic.
mother running daughter
Daughters could survive a powerful mother, but boys found it almost impossible. Such boys were often severely damaged and spent the rest of their lives running away from their mothers, or from anybody who remotely reminded them of their mothers; either that, or they became their mothers, in a desperate, misguided act of psychological self defence.
love lying people
But don't we often lie to people we love, or not tell them things, precisely because we love them?