Alexander McCall Smith Quotes

It would be wonderful to have a guru; it would be like having a social worker or a personal trainer, not that people who had either of these necessarily appreciated the advice they received.

Alexander McCall Smith

• People
• Advice

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Quotes to Explore

• I don't keep people around me that aren't family. You don't get to stay. Unless you're eating at the table with us, you're not part. We eat together, we cry together, we live together, we die together. Everything that we do is for each other, and we care for another.

  

  Lady Gaga
  • People
  • Live
  • Family

• In fact, there is clear evidence of black intellectual superiority: in 1984, 92 percent of blacks voted to retire Ronald Reagan, compared to only 36 percent of whites.

  

  Barbara Ehrenreich
  • Black
  • Intellectual
  • Clear

• I actually have a fear of the water because I nearly drowned. I got caught in a rip tide, and I wasn't a good swimmer because that was when I was emigrating from England to Australia.

  

  Naomi Watts
  • Good
  • Fear
  • Water

• You have to interpret what's hot to make it work on yourself. If tweed suits are in, but you're not a suit kind of girl, wear the jacket with jeans and a pair of Converses.

  

  Rachel Zoe
  • Work
  • Girl
  • Yourself

• Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.

  

  Sallust
  • Men
  • Desire
  • Wish

• I like the discipline of well-cut, impeccable clothes. I think it's a very healthy discipline.

  

  Karl Lagerfeld
  • Discipline
  • Healthy
  • Clothes

• A lot of news is just entertainment masquerading as news.

  

  Nate Silver
  • Just
  • News
  • Entertainment

• Twenty years ago, there were dozens and dozens of independent television producers. There are a couple now, at the most. Mark Burnett, Endemol. It's gone. Everybody works for the Man now. And it's natural law, how that happened: Nobody prescribed it, but it's how things worked out and how it has been for decades, period.

  

  Barry Diller
  • Man
  • Law
  • Couple

• We don't want to be treated any differently, and we want to continue with our lives and our careers.

  

  Vanessa Kerry
  • Want
  • Continue
  • Differently

• In the South, we drink the Bible with our mother's milk.

  

  Karin Slaughter
  • Mother
  • Bible
  • Drink

• I grew up in a hippie commune so I have a real hippie part of me.

  

  Patricia Arquette
  • Me
  • Part
  • Grew

• I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.

  

  Mahatma Gandhi
  • Die
  • Kill

• Women's stories have been neglected for so long - unless they were queens. Exploring the history of women is a way of redressing that imbalance.

  

  Kate Williams
  • Long
  • Women
  • History

• One of these topics we talk about with the team on our 'Competition Wednesday' is iron sharpening iron. That's the process we go through to get each other ready, and that's why we have some periods where we get to compete against one another.

  

  Dan Quinn
  • Why
  • Team
  • Competition

• The movie I've watched a million times is 'A Face in the Crowd,' directed by Elia Kazan, starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal. I first saw this movie, I guess I was in my early 20s. I'd never heard of it, and somebody told me about it, and I watched it and was just completely jaw-droppingly shocked at how current it was.

  

  Callie Khouri
  • Movie
  • Me
  • Never

• No industry in living memory has collapsed faster than daily print journalism.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Daily
  • Memory
  • Journalism

• I think that most people who hire me to do a remix just want it to work in a nightclub, whereas when I'm writing my own album, I don't have to worry so much about 2 A.M.

  

  Kaskade
  • People
  • Work
  • Writing

• My hand is the extension of the thinking process - the creative process.

  

  Tadao Ando
  • Thinking
  • Art
  • Hand

• Nos beaux sentiments ne sont-ils pas les poe sies de la volonte ? Aren't our best feelings poetry of the will?

  

  Honore de Balzac
  • Poetry
  • Sentiments
  • Volonte

• I got a camera when I was nine years old and it wasn't until I was a model that I realized you could be a photographer for a job.

  

  Nigel Barker
  • Jobs
  • Cameras
  • Photographer

• What is a date, really, but a job interview that lasts all night? The only difference is there aren't many job interviews where there's a chance you'll end up naked at the end of it. 'Well, Bill, the boss thinks you're the right man for the job; why don't you strip down and meet some of the people you'll be working with?'

  

  Jerry Seinfeld
  • People
  • Up
  • Why

• I loved things like Destiny's Child, and Amy Winehouse's first record came out when I was 11 years old. But as a young, young child, I was just surrounded by Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan - just massive, soulful voices.

  

  Sam Smith
  • Wonder
  • Child
  • Destiny

• I always wanted to be a mom.

  

  Kate Hudson
  • Mom
  • Always
  • Wanted

• It would be wonderful to have a guru; it would be like having a social worker or a personal trainer, not that people who had either of these necessarily appreciated the advice they received.

  

  Alexander McCall Smith
  • People
  • Advice