My wife Elizabeth and I started The Really Terrible Orchestra for people like us who are pretty hopeless musicians who would like to play in an orchestra. It has been a great success. We give performances we’ve become the most famous bad orchestra in the world.
Alexander McCall Smith | famous Read More »
No plaque reminds the passer-by of these glories, although there should be one; for those who invent biscuits bring great pleasure to many.
Quote from Alexander McCall Smith, The World According to Bertie Read More »
It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought you down to earth. That gave you a reason for going on. Pumpkin.
Quote from Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Read More »
Regular maps have few surprises: their contour lines reveal where the Andes are, and are reasonably clear. More precious, though, are the unpublished maps we make ourselves, of our city, our place, our daily world, our life; those maps of our private world we use every day; here I was happy, in that place I left my coat behind after a party, that is where I met my love; I cried there once, I was heartsore; but felt better round the corner once I saw the hills of Fife across the Forth, things of that sort, our personal memories, that make the private tapestry of our lives.
Quote from Alexander McCall Smith, Love Over Scotland Read More »
Go to any small village anywhere in the world, and see what they remember. Everything. It’s all there — passed on like a precious piece of information, some secret imparted from one who knew to one who yearns to know. Taken good care of.
Quote from Alexander McCall Smith, La’s Orchestra Saves the World Read More »
Mma Ramotswe had listened to a World Service broadcast on her radio one day which had simply taken her breath away. It was about philosophers who called themselves existentialists and who, as far as Mma Ramotswe could ascertain, lived in France. These French people said that you should just live in a way which made you feel real, and that the real thing to do was the right thing too. Mma Ramotswe had listened in astonishment. You did not have to go to France to meet existentialists, she reflected; there were many existentialists right here in Botswana. Note Mokoti, for example. She had been married to an existentialist herself, without even knowing it. Note, that selfish man who never once put himself out for another–not even for his wife–would have approved of existentialists, and they of him. It was very existentialist, perhaps, to go out to bars every night while your pregnant wife stayed at home, and even more existentialist to go off with girls–young existentialist girls–you met in bars. It was a good life being an existentialist, although not too good for all the other, nonexistentialist people around one.
Quote from Alexander McCall Smith, Morality for Beautiful Girls Read More »