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The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8) QUOTES

The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8) QUOTES

1 " Leave them,” said Isabel. “Jamie can iron them himself. It’s very therapeutic for men to iron. Therapeutic for women, that is. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

2 " Cat was searching for the company of one who would make her happy. Some of us did not have to look long for that person, some of us found him or her with little difficulty; others had longer to look, and had less luck. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

3 " Music and art and philosophy are ultimately based on the premise that this man on his tractor, and these pigs, and the swarms of bees that fertilise the crops, will all continue to do what they do. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

4 " Metaphors were so bloody: people shot messengers,, flogged dead horses, cut the throats of their competitors. Perhaps that was life; perhaps that's what it was really like. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

5 " There are old mycologists and there are bold mycologists, but there are no old, bold mycologists. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

6 " there is something there—some force, or truth, perhaps—to put it at its most general. I sense it, and I suppose I’d even go so far as to say that I yearn for it. I want it to be. Maybe that’s God. But I find it difficult to accept any statement as to his identity. And as for claims to be the sole interpreter of that force—the sort of claim made by religions that tell you that they have the sole answer—well, what can one say about such arrogance … "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

7 " if you had no language, then what form did your thoughts take—if you thought at all? Of course you thought—she had never had any difficulty with accepting that—but how limited would your thoughts be in the absence of any words to express them? "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

8 " Self-doubt was a luxury, as, perhaps, was the examined life. And yet the examined life, as the adage had it, was the only life worth living. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

9 " She knew that for many people this was their greatest ambition: to have a partner and a child, to live the domestic life, but she had never thought it would be enough for her. Yet it was. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

10 " Some knowledge is a fish,” she muttered. “Some is a serpent. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

11 " An Englishman was reflecting on the different words that people use for fish. ‘Isn’t it strange,’ he said, ‘that the French say le poisson, the Spanish say el pescado, and the English call it fish—which is what it is.’  "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

12 " have misgivings about people not having a spiritual life. It’s so … so shallow. I sometimes think that life without a spiritual dimension must be like being made of cardboard—and as deep and satisfying.” She paused. “I feel that there is something there—some force, or truth, perhaps—to put it at its most general. I sense it, and I suppose I’d even go so far as to say that I yearn for it. I want it to be. Maybe that’s God. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

13 " There were times when life’s problems were convincingly outweighed by its possibilities, and this, she felt, was one. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

14 " Society may be post-Christian, but could hardly ignore its Judeo-Christian past; we did not, after all, come from nowhere. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

15 " IF EITHER OF THEM had felt tetchy, the concert put them both in a good mood. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

16 " I sometimes find myself thinking: wouldn’t it be far less complicated to have a job like that? To sell things? To order cheese and salamis and all the rest and not worry about what we should do and how we should do it? "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

17 " We should not be too surprised by the kindness of strangers, as it is always there. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

18 " You know something?” he said to Jamie. “I’ve never believed in God, but I do believe in his love. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

19 " There was a jauntiness in the young woman’s manner that appealed to Isabel. And then there was the accent, which was not Scottish, but from somewhere in Northern Ireland and not unlike Georgina Cameron’s; the English that Shakespeare would have spoken, preserved by centuries of relative linguistic isolation. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)

20 " skyline reveals a city’s purpose and character. Oxford had its dreaming spires; Manhattan its glittering towers; Edinburgh its eccentric spikes. "

― Alexander McCall Smith , The Forgotten Affairs of Youth (Isabel Dalhousie, #8)