Alexander McCall Smith Quotes

One might expect bad behaviour from existentialists – indeed that was what existentialism was all about, was it not? – but to find this happening on one’s own doorstep was a shock.

Alexander McCall Smith

• Bad
• Existentialism

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Quotes to Explore

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• I had been playing really interesting roles before I got great roles. Little ones - 'The Crying Game' I loved working on, and then 'Bird,' 'Ghost Dog,' so many films.

  

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• I loved the glamour and excitement of the games and, in particular, knowing the names of each and every one of the referees - that's because my mom, a former basketball player, would yell at them from our front-row seats for making bad calls!

  

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• It's hard for me to talk about Dom right now because I am Dom right now. So it's a really strange exercise to try to reflect on something that I am at the moment. But I guarantee you that when I'm done with the movie and you ask me that question, I'll be able to give you something insightful.

  

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• You can tell the difference between songs that were created in a garage and songs that were created in the studio.

  

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• If you live through the initial stage of fame and get past it, and remember thats not who you are. If you live past that, then you have a hope of maybe learning how to spell the word artist.

  

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• I can go to a country song, go right into it and make it sound authentic. And I think that's because of my ear as an impressionist.

  

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• A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command the latter.

  

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• What is this world? A mere curl of smoke for the wind to scatter.

  

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• When I did 'Hot Fuzz,' I tried to get Barbara Steele in the movie, but I was told she had retired.

  

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• Modern secular thought has its own dualism: It treats only the physical world as knowable and testable, while locking everything else - mind, spirit, morality, meaning - into the realm of private, subjective feelings. The so-called fact/value split.

  

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• I have a friendship with Hezbollah, and I also have contacts outside of Lebanon, but it doesn't mean I follow anyone's agenda.

  

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• You've always got to have the right blend of colour. You'd be silly to match a yellow t-shirt with a light green pair of trousers, you know? You can wear different colours at the same time, and as long as they blend with each other then it works. That's what I like.

  

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• In a world that is constantly changing, there is no one subject or set of subjects that will serve you for the foreseeable future, let alone for the rest of your life. The most important skill to acquire now is learning how to learn.

  

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• When you go to a voice-based interaction, you can't tell people, 'Ask me this question and structure it in this way.' And if they ask a question, and you have a bad answer, first time, maybe they'll be okay with it. Third time, they're going to say, 'This is a complete waste of time. I'm going away.'

  

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• It has to be understood, it has to be measured, and the investment needs to make sense, but debt on its face is not a bad thing.

  

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• One might expect bad behaviour from existentialists – indeed that was what existentialism was all about, was it not? – but to find this happening on one’s own doorstep was a shock.

  

  Alexander McCall Smith
  • Bad
  • Existentialism