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44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1) QUOTES

44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1) QUOTES

1 " Daughters could survive a powerful mother, but boys found it almost impossible. Such boys were often severely damaged and spent the rest of their lives running away from their mothers, or from anybody who remotely reminded them of their mothers; either that, or they became their mothers, in a desperate, misguided act of psychological self defence. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

2 " The young rarely believe that they will not be able to get what they want, because there is always an open future. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

3 " Portraiture has its risks, and I suppose a dissident Free Presbyterian fatwa is one of them. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

4 " Telling a person with toothache that there are others with greater toothache than their own was no help at all. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

5 " steamships insult the dignity of distance, "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

6 " It's really rather easy to write eighth-century Chinese poetry," said Angus Lordie. "In English, of course. It requires little effort, I find. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

7 " Believe me, there’s nothing more brittle than human beauty. Encounter it. Savour it, by all means. Then watch how it turns to dust. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

8 " In such a way is freedom of thought lost... By small cuts. By small acts of disapproval. By a thousand discouragements of spirit. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

9 " French philosophers had been able to admire Mao and his works because they did not have to live in China at the time. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

10 " The whole point about childhood,” Domenica went on, “is that it affords us a brief moment of innocence and protection from the pressures of the world. Parents who push their children too hard intrude on that little bit of space. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

11 " She assigned the shirt a number and turned to the next prize. This was a set of six fish knives and forks, made by Hamilton and Inches, and a very handsome prize for somebody. This would be popular at a Conservative function, but would be useless at a Labour Party event. They had no idea, she believed, of the use of fish knives and forks and used the same cutlery for everything. That was part of the problem. The Liberal Democrats, of course, knew what fish knives and forks were all about, but pretended they didn’t care! Liberal Hypocrites, thought Sasha. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

12 " Those regularly-featured Hollywood males made her feel slightly nauseous; and the same could be said for their female equivalents, hardly intellectuals they. These people had regular features but were actually ugly because they tended to be so completely vacuous. Regularity without some metaphysical value behind it, some beauty of soul or character, was more disappointing – and indeed repulsive – than the honestly haphazard, the humanly messy. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

13 " It's so difficult to sustain a fatwa,' said Domenica. 'One has to be so enthusiastic. I'm not sure if I could find the moral energy myself. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

14 " Everybody kissed one another these days; kisses meant nothing. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

15 " Regularity without some metaphysical value behind it, some beauty of soul or character, was more disappointing – and indeed repulsive – than the honestly haphazard, the humanly messy. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

16 " nemo dat quod non habet. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

17 " It was perfectly possible to portray scientific knowledge as socially determined – and therefore not true in any real sense – when one was safe on the ground in Paris; but would you ask the same question in a jet aircraft at thirty-five thousand feet, when that same knowledge underpinned the very engineering that was keeping one up in the air? "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

18 " In such a way is freedom of thought lost,” said Angus Lordie, who had been listening very attentively to Domenica. “By small cuts. By small acts of disapproval. By a thousand discouragements of spirit. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

19 " We all have Proustian moments, but don’t really know about it until we read Proust. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)

20 " most dogs seemed contented enough, and often seemed rather happier than the humans attached to them. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)