When we dismiss or deny the hopes of others, she thought, we forget that they, like us, have only one chance in this life.
We find what we are looking for in life, her father had once said to her, which was true—if you look for happiness, you will see it; if you look for distrust and envy and hatred—all those things—you w...
We can't afford to be without God, Feliks continued. Even if he doesn't exist, we have to hold on to him. Because if we don't, then how are we to convince ourselves that we have to go on with this fig...
To use strong language, she thought, was a sign of bad temper and lack of concern for others. Such people were not clever or bold simply because they used such language; each time they opened their mo...
There were times when an apology was best, she thought, even when one really had nothing to apologise for. If only people would say sorry sooner rather than later, Mma Ramotswe believed, much discord...
The trouble with the world today, she thought, was that people were not prepared to stand up to bad behaviour.
The recipe for each child is just for that child, even if it is the same mother and father.
Sorry about your sausage dog.
Somewhere in the organisation, high in its upper reaches, were minds that churned out page after page of guidance notes, instructions, and policy statements. Most of these were filed and forgotten; se...
She had not made a lot of money, but she had not made a loss, and she had been happy and entertained. That counted for infinitely more than a vigorously healthy balance sheet. In fact, she thought, an...
She had been seized with a sudden existential horror. The house had white carpets and white furniture and, most significantly, no books.
Poor Erik, muttered Anna. No, said Ulf. No. Not poor Erik—fortunate Erik. Anna gave Ulf a dubious look. But all he thinks of... ...is fishing. Yes, but does that make him unhappy? Quite the contrary:...
Places had echoes- and if one were sensitive, one might just pick up some resonance from the past, some feeling for what had happened.
Out in Saxe-Coburg Street she stood still for a moment and looked at the gardens. He kissed me, she thought. He made the move; I didn't. The thought was an overwhelming one and invested the everyday w...
None of us is immune to shipwreck. Come, beckons the fatal shore: come and die on my white sands, it said. And we do.
Nobody is so bad that there is no chance of change.
No sailor could be lonelier than a man standing in the middle of our land, with the miles and miles of blue about him.
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was not a lazy man, but it was remarkable to reflect how most men imagined that things like tea and food would simply appear if they waited long enough. There would always be a wom...
Mr. J.L.B Matekoni, she asked, do you think that our souls grow as we get older?He did not answer immediately, but when he did, she thought his answer quite perfect. Yes, he said. Our souls get wider....
Moral beauty existed as clearly as any other form of beauty and perhaps that was where we could find the God who was so vividly, and sometimes bizarrely, described in our noisy religious explanations....