Alexander McCall Smith Quotes

’They are a very great boon to mankind, dentists,’ said Isabel. ‘And I’m not sure that we are grateful enough to them. I’m not sure that we even bother to thank them.’ She paused. Were there any statues of dentists? She thought not. And yet there should be.

Alexander McCall Smith

• Thank
• Statues
• Dentists

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Quotes to Explore

• If we are ever to halt climate change and conserve land, water and other resources, not to mention reduce animal suffering, we must celebrate Earth Day every day - at every meal.

  

  Ingrid Newkirk
  • Earth
  • Change
  • Day

• It was my mother's idea. Her feeling was that I didn't have the intelligence to pick a trade myself.

  

  Vidal Sassoon
  • Mother
  • Feeling
  • Myself

• All creative people have to have vulnerability because those nuances are what move people. So I'm deeply insecure - but I'm good at hiding it.

  

  Paloma Faith
  • People
  • Good
  • Creative

• I've dealt with a lot of couples over the years, and most cite the battle for closet and bathroom space as one of the most frequent causes of marital discord.

  

  Candice Olson
  • Space
  • Years
  • Battle

• I have, like, two and a half years of failed jokes that I know I wouldn't repeat, but I certainly have no comprehension of what definitely works. And the only gauge that I can go by is, 'This makes me laugh,' and is joyful... I like to, if possible, do things that people can enjoy and it doesn't take anybody down.

  

  Taran Killam
  • People
  • Enjoy
  • Laugh

• All the skills of housewifery are the ones I'm using as a producer.

  

  Frances McDormand
  • Skills
  • Producer
  • Using

• I want to have a career in 10, 20 years, so it's harder now, and maybe more stressful now, but in the future, hopefully it will all pay off.

  

  Verite
  • Future
  • Want
  • Career

• If anybody's getting a shot, somebody's getting a shot against me because I'm the guy to beat.

  

  Nate Diaz
  • Guy
  • Me
  • Against

• You need to prepare the child you have for the world that exists.

  

  Hanna Rosin
  • World
  • Child
  • Prepare

• I noticed in America that if you write a book of any kind, you're made to be the representative of all the issues that might surround it.

  

  Zadie Smith
  • Book
  • America
  • Write

• The royal road to a man's heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.

  

  Dale Carnegie
  • Heart
  • Man
  • Road

• There is some big thing about the world that produced all these people willing to kill themselves just to hurt us. On 9/11 we learned we're part of that world, in the same completely crazy, drastic and arbitrary ways it hits other countries.

  

  Ian Lustick
  • People
  • World
  • Crazy

• The popularity of leaders like Mandela was an invitation to counter-attack by the government. Mandela was banned from speaking, from attending gatherings, from leaving Johannesburg, from belonging to any organization.

  

  Oliver Tambo
  • Government
  • Organization
  • Leaving

• My mother tells me of when I was 10 or 11 and I'd wear really tight, short skirts and crop tops. All the local men would wolf whistle and stop and stare, but I didn't realise why at the time.

  

  Lara Stone
  • Time
  • Men
  • Why

• Everything happens for a reason - I'm a believer of that for sure.

  

  Katarina Johnson-Thompson
  • Reason
  • Everything
  • Sure

• I've become more and more aware of the promise and struggle to teach the global mind nowadays because I use every chance I get to ask faculty and administrators of management education programs why we don't offer at least one course - not even required, just an elective - on the world's religions.

  

  Warren Bennis
  • World
  • Mind
  • Why

• Don't tell God they were only little globs of tissue.  They were real live persons, being formed in their mother;s womb.

  

  Jack Chick
  • God
  • Live
  • Real

• I hate to lose more than I like to win.

  

  Larry Bird
  • Hate

• No, women like you don't write. They carve onion sculptures and potato statues. They sit in dark corners and braid their hair in new shapes and twists in order to control the stiffness, the unruliness, the rebelliousness.

  

  Edwidge Danticat
  • Women
  • Control
  • Dark

• The depravity of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality but at the same time the most intellectually resisted fact.

  

  Malcolm Muggeridge
  • Time
  • Man
  • Reality

• We can learn from history how past generations thought and acted, how they responded to the demands of their time and how they solved their problems. We can learn by analogy, not by example, for our circumstances will always be different than theirs were. The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events.

  

  Gerda Lerner
  • Knowledge
  • Action
  • Problem

• As far as we are concerned, we are not the toys of any country, including the United States.

  

  Mohammed Reza Pahlavi
  • Country
  • United States
  • Including

• ’They are a very great boon to mankind, dentists,’ said Isabel. ‘And I’m not sure that we are grateful enough to them. I’m not sure that we even bother to thank them.’ She paused. Were there any statues of dentists? She thought not. And yet there should be.

  

  Alexander McCall Smith
  • Thank
  • Statues
  • Dentists