Alexander McCall Smith Quotes
Our minds can come up with the most entertaining possibilities, if we let them. But most of the time, we keep them under far too close a check.

Quotes to Explore
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Let us go forward in this battle fortified by conviction that those who labour in the service of a great and good cause will never fail.
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God is not something I think about but something I experience as an energy, a Presence. I do find it easier to pray to a female Presence or an androgynous Presence.
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I don't write under the ghost of Faulkner. I live in the same town and find his life and work inspiring, but that's it. I have a motorcycle and tool along the country lanes. I travel at my own speed.
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I never thought 'Stairway to Heaven' was a long song. I loved how there was this part and then there was another part that was completely different.
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I rolled up my sleeves and said, 'I want to make a mark on this world.'
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If I had to do it all over, I'd be more secluded about it.
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I always wanted to be a writer. Maybe, had I been brought up in another generation, I might have just gone into writing rather than medicine - which is not to say that I didn't also have a great attraction towards the idea of being a healer. Fortunately, I've been able to combine the two in ways I could never possibly have imagined.
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I've tried coconut water straight up before, and to me, it's a little funky.
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Close friends consider me a literary snob.
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As a child, I had a serious illness that lasted for two years or more. I have vague recollections of this illness and of my being carried about a great deal. I was known as the 'sick one.' Whether this illness gave me a twist away from ordinary paths, I don't know; but it is possible.
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A long-lasting and sustained recovery will never be achieved through massive government spending programs.
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Children seem naturally drawn to poetry - it's some combination of the rhyme, rhythm, and the words themselves.
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Sometimes I thank God... for cheeseburgers.
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One must do the same subject over again ten times, a hundred times. In art nothing must resemble an accident, not even movement.
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My art originates from hallucinations only I can see. I translate the hallucinations and obsessional images that plague me into sculptures and paintings.
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The familiar trope of the woman in peril doesn't really interest me.
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Summer boarders often left clothes behind, and of what use were they to the landladies, for no rag-and-bone man ever called at their houses. The truth of the matter was that in less than a week I was well dressed from head to foot, all of these things being voluntary offerings, when in quest of eatables.
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I'm very aware and very conscious of the path I chose in life, and very aware of the path I didn't choose.
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Moms can be fresh, fly and young, and that's the kind of mom I want to be.
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I think anybody can be a good actor.
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When I am an old woman, I will stop trying to look beautiful. I will quit wearing makeup and buying uncomfortable clothes because they look good. Maybe I will take up nudism.
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This whole Oscar thing is so political. It's about how much a film grosses, and who's in it, and how well it has been promoted.
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You must maximize the probability that someone shows up at front door of your store or website and ends up with a solved problem.
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Our minds can come up with the most entertaining possibilities, if we let them. But most of the time, we keep them under far too close a check.