The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16) QUOTES

1 " She was proud of her build, which was in accordance with the old Botswana ideas of beauty, and she would not pander to the modern idea of slenderness. That was an importation from elsewhere, and it was simply wrong. How could a very thin woman do all the things that women needed to do: to carry children on their backs, to pound maize into flour out at the lands or the cattle post, to cart around the things of the household—the pots and pans and buckets of water? And how could a thin woman comfort a man? It would be very awkward for a man to share his bed with a person who was all angles and bone, whereas a traditionally built lady would be like an extra pillow on which a man coming home tired from his work might rest his weary head. To do all that you needed a bit of bulk, and thin people simply did not have that. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

2 " Men, she thought, were odd about their clothes: they liked to wear the same things until they became defeated and threadbare. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

3 " It shall be an offence for any man, either a husband or other person of the male sex, married or otherwise, being over the age of twelve years, to throw any item of clothing having been worn by the said person for whatever length of time, upon the floor of any bathroom or any room adjacent to and connected to a bathroom, without good cause. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

4 " She knew as well as anyone that the world could be a place of trial and sorrow, that there was injustice and suffering and heartlessness - there was enough of all that to fill the great Kalahari twice over, but what good did it do to ponder that and that alone? None, she thought. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

5 " It was a voice that you felt you had to listen to—or you ignored at your peril. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

6 " There is a tidal wave of ignorance, Mma Ramotswe. It is a great tidal wave and it will drown all of us if we are not careful. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

7 " There was a great deal of progress being made, right under their noses, particularly in Africa, and this progress was good. Life was much harder for tyrants than it had been before. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

8 " I shall go and sit under a tree…. Which tree, Mma?... Oh, there are many trees in this life, she said. It does not matter which tree you choose, as long as you choose the right one. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

9 " We must not eat dripping any more,’ warned Mma Makutsi from behind a healthy living magazine. ‘We must give up such things, Mma.’ This advice had been accompanied by a stern look in Mma Ramotswe’s direction. Mma Ramotswe had not taken that lying down. ‘Soon they will be telling us not to eat anything,’ she countered. ‘They will say that only air is good for you. Air and water.’ Mma Makutsi had not approved. ‘You cannot fight science, Mma. Science is telling us that many of the things we like to eat in this country are not good for us. They say that these things are making us too large.’ ‘I am not fighting science, Mma,’ replied Mma Ramotswe. ‘I am just saying that we have to have some things that we like, otherwise we shall be very unhappy. And if you are very unhappy you can die – we all know that.’ She allowed that to sink in before she continued. ‘There are many people who have been thinking a lot about science who are now late. It would have been better for them to spend more time being happy while they had the chance. That is well known, Mma – it is very well known.’ Mma Makutsi had become silent. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

10 " Being loved and admired by a man like that—and she knew that this man, this mechanic, this fixer of machines with their broken hearts, did indeed love and admire her—was like walking in the sunshine; it gave the same feeling of warmth and pleasure to bask in the love of one who has promised it, publicly at a wedding ceremony, and who is constant in his promise that such love will be given for the rest of his days. What more could any woman ask? None of us, she thought, not one single one of us, could ask for anything more than that. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

11 " I am just saying that we have to have some things that we like, otherwise we shall be very unhappy. And if you are very unhappy you can die – we all know that. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

12 " I worry about you a great deal, Mma. I worry that you will take all the cares of the world on your shoulders and that you will collapse under the weight. I worry that you will open your heart to so many people that eventually it will be full—crowded—and it will stop because there is no room for the blood to go round. I am worried that you will look after so many people that you will forget that there is one person who also needs looking after, and that person is you, Mma. I am worried about all these things. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

13 " There is a difference between a challenge and a burden. One is something you can carry on your shoulders easily enough—the other is something, a big sack, that bends you double. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

14 " If people came at you and started to scratch you, then of course you had the right to sit on them. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

15 " The trouble with the world today, she thought, was that people were not prepared to stand up to bad behaviour. They looked away, "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

16 " People who do that sort of thing may reap what they sow, but they also destroy the harvest of those who are around them. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

17 " If you did not keep your yard in reasonable order, then your whole life would be similarly untidy. A messy yard told Mma Ramotswe everything she needed to know about its owner. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

18 " The size of one’s house might bear a relationship to the size of one’s opinion of oneself, but it had nothing to do with one’s real worth. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

19 " Everything, it seemed to Mma Ramotswe, had a waiting list—except the government taxman and the call, when it came, to leave this world. You could not argue with the agents of either of these: you paid, and you went. But I am just on the waiting list…No, there is no waiting list for these things… "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)

20 " You must not think that because one thing happens after another thing, then it is the first thing that causes the second thing. You must not think that, because it might not be true. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #16)