Most children have become very surly. That is because they are not taught to think about others any more. They are, quite simply, spoiled.
Mma Ramotswe had a gift for the American woman, a basket which on her return journey from Bulawayo she had bought, on impulse, from a woman sitting by the side of the road in Francistown. The woman wa...
Mma Makutsi was unconvinced. Where there is smoke there’s fire, Mma. I have always said that. Mma Ramotswe could not let that pass. But what does Clovis Andersen say in The Principles of Private Detec...
Many waters cannot quench love: the anthem's setting remained in her ears, repeating itself; a tune so powerful that it might gird one against the disappointments of life, rather than make one aware t...
Make a list of what you know, what you don’t know, and what you’d like to know. Make a list of possible outcomes. Choose the outcome you think is best, then go for that!
Look at what very ordinary people have lost, and think about that for a moment. What has happened to working-class communities in Scotland? To miners, for example. To fishermen? Who? You might well as...
Lists, she thought, are the stories of our lives; they give a picture of who we are and what we do every day. The
Lightning always strikes in the same place twice, said Mma Ramotswe. Whatever people say to the contrary.
Let’s not have a sniffle, let’s have a jolly good cry And always remember, the longer you live, the sooner you jolly well die.
I’m glad you came, said Rob. I like having lunch. I find it a much more sociable meal than dinner.
It was while teaching at this school that Auden experienced the vision that lay at the heart of A Summer Night. He later wrote about it in these words: One fine summer night in June 1933 I was sitting...
It was pure privilege that determined where so many of us ended up in life, Isabel reflected; it was nothing to do with merit, it was privilege. Or, putting it another way, it was a matter of accident...
It was a warm evening, at least by the standards applied in Scotland, where summer is sometimes no more than a promise, an aspiration
It is undoubtedly the case that the practice of the virtues makes one happier. We’ve somewhat lost sight of that essential truth, now that we, as a society, admire selfishness and vanity so much.
It is the search for beauty...That is what it is. We find ourselves on this earth--gods and men--and we know that it is beautiful. That is one of the few things we understand--beauty; because it is th...
It is so easy to thank people, said Mma Ramotswe, passing the letter over to Mma Makutsi, and most people don't bother to do it. They don't thank the person who does something for them. They just take...
It is my duty to help them solve the mysteries in their lives. That is what I am called to do.
It is considerably more than that, though: it is an acceptance that in the face of meaninglessness or indifference it is still possible to be engaged in the world—it is still possible to love. These a...
It had always struck her as wrong that we should judge ourselves-or, more usually, others-by single acts, as if a single snapshot said anything about what a person had been like over the whole course...
Isabel smiled. She liked a conversation that went in odd directions; she liked the idea of playfulness in speech. People could be so depressingly literal. Jamie