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"My wife Elizabeth and I started The Really Terrible Orchestra for people like us who are pretty hopeless musicians who would like to play in an orchestra. It has been a great success. We give performances we've become the most famous bad orchestra in the world."
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"88% of what we call good songs aren't really good. They merely remind us of a good time we once had."
"A tapping foot isn't the best a listener can get from a song: A good song makes a listener dance. A great song makes him think."
"Both parents were very encouraging - especially my father. My father thought the sun rose and set with me. Neither one had a musical background or any musical talent. They liked classical music, but neither could carry a tune."
"Nothing pleases me more than to go into a room and come out with a piece of music."
Explore more quotes by Alexander McCall Smith
"Sociopaths are attracted to politics because the see it as a sphere in which you can be ruthless and step all over people. That fact that some politicians can tell such awful lies is another example of sociopathy. Sociopaths lie-they see nothing wrong with it."
"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."
"Memories of that which we have lost are curious things - weeks, months, even years may pass without recollection of them and then, quite suddenly, something will remind us of a lost friend, or of a favourite possession that has been mislaid or destroyed, and then we think: Yes, that is what I have had and I have no longer."
"Anybody can lose,' cautioned Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. 'You need to remember that every time you win."
"Mr Mandela, who had given his whole life for justice and had never once thought of himself. How unlike these people were modern politicians, who thought only of power and tricks."
"The previously unloved may find it hard to believe that they are now loved; that is such a miracle, they feel; such a miracle."
"If she was going to remain an engaged lady, then she would make the most of it, and one of the ways to do this would be to enjoy her free time."
"Regular maps have few surprises: their contour lines reveal where the Andes are, and are reasonably clear. More precious, though, are the unpublished maps we make ourselves, of our city, our place, our daily world, our life; those maps of our private world we use every day; here I was happy, in that place I left my coat behind after a party, that is where I met my love; I cried there once, I was heartsore; but felt better round the corner once I saw the hills of Fife across the Forth, things of that sort, our personal memories, that make the private tapestry of our lives."
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