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Alexander McCall Smith

"Men are very sensitive, Mma Makutsi. You would not always think it to look at them, but they are. They do not like you to point out that they are wrong, even when they are. That is the way things are, Mma--it just is."

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"Men are very sensitive, Mma Makutsi. You would not always think it to look at them, but they are. They do not like you to point out that they are wrong, even when they are. That is the way things are, Mma--it just is."

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A.E. Samaan

"It was as if my whole life revolved around trying to judge the appropriate point in a conversation to say goodbye."

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Personal Development

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A.E. Samaan

"Never abandon widows, widowers and orphans."

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Personal Development

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A.E. Samaan

"My grandma, Mrs Grace Ayorkor Acquah, said, "Money matters is only a matter of fancy."

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Personal Development

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A.E. Samaan

"Money cannot buy love."

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Personal Development

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A.E. Samaan

"Living in harmony with one another brings inner tranquility."

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Personal Development

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A.E. Samaan

"Be interested yourself, and you will interest others."

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Personal Development

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A.E. Samaan

"You know, in a society where children just about have to seek parental permission to sit on Santa's knee, the word 'paedophile' should send more shivers up your spine than the word 'druggie'."

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Personal Development

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A.E. Samaan

"Never look too far to find a family. Your neighbour is your closest family."

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Personal Development

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A.E. Samaan

"How many of us have lately taken the time out to look at the sky; marvel at the clouds; smell the flowers; or smelt the fresh scent of rain; bought a stranger a cup of tea or coffee; given our time to help another; or just taken time out to sit and watch people rush hither and tither; said "I love you"; smiled at a complete stranger; joined in with kids from the street to play a game?Sadly, I would have to say....not many.It's sad...."

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Personal Development

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A.E. Samaan

"You have a very open relationship with your fans.""Yes. We have an open relationship. Obviously they can see other authors if they want, and I can see other readers."

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Alexander McCall Smith
"We live in a culture of complaint because everyone is always looking for things to complain about. It's all tied in with the desire to blame others for misfortunes and to get some form of compensation into the bargain."

Society

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Alexander McCall Smith
"Perhaps trust had to be accompanied by a measure of common sense, and a hefty dose of realism about human nature. But that would need a lot of thinking about, and the tea break did not go on forever."

Relationship

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Alexander McCall Smith
"It was always the best way of finding out information; just go and ask a woman who keeps her eyes and ears open and who likes to talk. It always worked. It was no use asking men; they simply were not interested enough in other people and the ordinary doings of people. That is why the real historians of Africa had always been the grandmothers, who remembered the lineage and the stories that went with it."

History

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Alexander McCall Smith
"Men, she thought, were odd about their clothes: they liked to wear the same things until they became defeated and threadbare."

Observation

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Alexander McCall Smith
"Bertie stared at his mother. She spoils things, he thought. All she ever does is spoil things. He had not started this conversation, and it was not his fault that they were now talking about Grey Owl. He sounded rather a nice man to Bertie. Any why should he not dress up in feathers and live in the forests if that was what he wanted to do? It was typical of his mother to try to spoil Grey Owl's fun."

Lifestyle

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Alexander McCall Smith
"When people ask for advice they very rarely want your advice and will go ahead and do what they want to do anyway, no matter what you say. That applied in every sort of case; it was a human truth of universal application, but one which most people knew little or nothing about."

Life

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Alexander McCall Smith
"Did it make a difference if the remark never got back to the person about whom it was made? She thought not. The harm is done when the words are uttered: that is the act of belittlement, the act of diminishing the other, and it is that act which would cause pain to the victim. You said that about me? The wrong was located in the making of the cruel remark, rather than in the pain it might later cause."

Ethics

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Alexander McCall Smith
"It was hard to disappear completely in Botswana, where there were fewer than two million people and where people had a healthy curiosity as to who was who and where people had come from. It was very difficult to be anonymous, even in Gaborone, as there would always be neighbours who would want to know exactly what one was doing and who one's people had been."

Society

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Alexander McCall Smith
"He had been thinking of how landscape moulds a language. It was impossible to imagine these hills giving forth anything but the soft syllables of Irish, just as only certain forms of German could be spoken on the high crags of Europe; or Dutch in the muddy, guttural, phlegmish lowlands."

Language

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Alexander McCall Smith
"She knew as well as anyone that the world could be a place of trial and sorrow, that there was injustice and suffering and heartlessness - there was enough of all that to fill the great Kalahari twice over, but what good did it do to ponder that and that alone? None, she thought."

Philosophy

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