3
" A local politician was being accused of fathering six children by six different women. “He has expressed surprise at these allegations,” the paper reported, “but has admitted to two of them.” Ulf sighed again. What did it matter? It was far too late to stop people breeding irresponsibly; it was far too late, in fact, to stop anybody doing anything. And yet, that was what he was paid to do. He, and Anna, and Carl were paid by the state, regularly and quite generously, to stop people from doing things that society deemed unacceptable. That was what they did—or were meant to do. "
― Alexander McCall Smith , The Man with the Silver Saab (Detective Varg, #3)
6
" Oh, I wasn’t suggesting you lied,” protested Blomquist. “I was merely raising it as a possibility. I didn’t say you should do that.” That itself, thought Ulf, is a lie. Blomquist was lying about lying, which, of course, was what happened when you started to lie. The first lie required a second—for consistency’s sake—and then a third and a fourth. Soon you would end up living in a vale of lies, where even the fact that it was night or day would be uncertain because the position of the sun could be denied if you so desired. "
― Alexander McCall Smith , The Man with the Silver Saab (Detective Varg, #3)
8
" Photocopying is an excuse not to read something. You say to yourself, I’ll photocopy this because it’s worth reading, and you do so. But then you’re not going to read the original, are you? You think, I’ve dealt with it, but you haven’t, have you? You put the photocopy in the in tray or you leave it on top of a filing cabinet, or whatever, but you never read it.” He paused. “The carrying out of the external acts associated with a duty is not the same as the discharge of the duty itself. "
― Alexander McCall Smith , The Man with the Silver Saab (Detective Varg, #3)
9
" You could do your best to lead a quiet life, to keep out of unnecessary conflict, to put in your forty years or whatever it was of working to the best of your ability without creating too many ripples, but there were always difficult decisions needing to be made. And however hard you tried, there would be times when you could not avoid causing pain to others, because pain and disappointment seemed an inevitable concomitant of human life. The moment you accepted any promotion, any slight advantage over those below you in the pecking order, you had to accept that you might have to do things that others would prefer you not to do—make rulings that would dash the hopes of others, give one person advantage over another, make people do things they would rather not do. All this came with seniority; all this came with working in a hierarchical organisation; all this came with simply being human. "
― Alexander McCall Smith , The Man with the Silver Saab (Detective Varg, #3)
