Top 51 Quotes by Alexander McCall Smith

Well, I'd say all of us are a combination of moods and emotions. In my day to day life I don't go around skipping, but at times one can feel sheer exhilarating joy at the world.

It's through the small things that we develop our moral imagination, so that we can understand the sufferings of others.

I just focus on getting the first scene right, with a few lines about the overall plot, and then the book grows organically.

Oh I love gadgets and I pride myself on keeping at the cutting edge of technology.

There is this intimacy still in Botswana. It's a country of just under two million people, and there's this sense of connectedness, in that people tend to be related to one another.

Botswana is actually very peaceful. It's democratic. It never was in debt. They've been fortunate, they've had diamonds.

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.

With '44 Scotland Street' I found myself having to work out how a daily novel works, and it is completely different to a conventional novel.

Baboons take a bit of getting to know but, apparently, once you break the ice, so to speak, they are complex and interesting creatures with elaborate societies.

One of the most destructive things that's happening in modern society is that we are losing our sense of the bonds that bind people together - which can lead to nightmares of social collapse.