Everything, all those great things, had happened so far away--or so it seemed to [Mma Ramotswe] at the time. The world was made to sound as if it belonged to other people--to those who lived in distan...
…reunions, she felt, were not much more than a scratching at the vague itch of memory. And like scratching, they rarely helped—indeed, scratching often made matters worse, as any dermatologist would t...
We must love those with whom we live and work, and love them for all their failings, manifest and manifold though they be.
'You can't read everything. I've never got beyond the beginning of Proust. I love him, but I can't seem to get beyond about page three.'They were comfortable in each other's company, and this confessi...
Class reunions were about curiosity; about satisfaction at the avoidance of the mistakes of one’s contemporaries, now revealed in their emerging life histories; about reflecting on the ravages—and inj...
…one of those dreadful boarding schools. It was down on the South Coast. I think some very unpleasant things happened there…. So many lives were distorted by such cruelty. I know so many men who had t...
This was a townscape raised in the teeth of cold winds from the east; a city of winding cobbled streets and haughty pillars; a city of dark nights and candlelight, and intellect.
She had argued for a broad interpretation, which imposed a duty to answer questions truthfully, and not to hide facts which could give a different complexion to a matter, but on subsequent thought she...
Undisclosed failings, she thought; that great weight we all carry around with us, some of us for all our lives, unable to speak about them, unable -- involuntary Atlases all -- to share the burden.
Shall I make you a cup of tea? He asked. It was the classic response to crisis practiced throughout these islands—in England, Scotland, and elsewhere. Emotional turmoil, danger, even disaster could be...
Pat wondered what inspiration an artist might find in the attempts of twenty-first-century architects to impose their phallic triumphs on the cityscape. Had any artist ever painted a contemporary glas...
Teachers were not allowed to beat children as they did in the past, although, Mma Ramotswe reflected, there were some boys-and indeed some young men-who might have been greatly improved by moderate ph...
Can you forgive her? Can you do that?There was no response.Because if you can start to forgive, then it will become easier.And?And then you will be able to forgive yourself—and ask others to forgive y...
…photographs on a wall were there for people to see and to examine if interested; an album is a different thing…
He had been thinking of how landscape moulds a language. It was impossible to imagine these hills giving forth anything but the soft syllables of Irish, just as only certain forms of German could be s...
…people decided what they thought and would not be moved, not even by the most patient, the most rational argument.
However she redefined herself, that part of one that made for the core of the self, that part that we think of as the ultimate, inner being—that was ineradicable Scottish. That part spoke with a Scott...
Has anyone sen Mr Snark I saw him in the tunnel about 15 minutes ago. Oh no wailed Dr Ferman he will have been atomised. Oh dear muttered an MP. Bye-election.
Resolution. Musicians know all about that, don’t they? Pieces of music seek resolution, have to end on a particular note, or it sounds all wrong. The same applies to our lives. It’s exactly the same.
It is sometimes easier to be happy if you don't know everything.