If the lord came back today, [Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni] thought, he would probably be a mechanic, he reflected. That would be a great honour for mechanics everywhere. And there is no doubt but that e would...
IT WAS three days after the satisfactory resolution of the Patel case. Mma Ramotswe had put in her bill for two thousand pula, plus expenses, and had been paid by return of post. This astonished her....
I said to him that Zululand sounded fine, but that every man has a map in his heart of his own country and that the heart will never allow you to forget this map.
I am blessed, and being blessed is something more than just having something; it is a state of mind in which the good of the world is illuminated, is understood. It is as if one is vouchsafed a vision...
How many of us dig our own graves, thought William. We dig them with vigour and determination, unaware of the implications, but with all the conviction of those who do not really know what they are do...
How many of us are happy to be exactly where we are at any moment?...only the completely happy think that they are in the correct place.
How do you calibrate pain? asked Jamie. By cutting out the background pain of the world, answered Isabel. By cutting all that out, not registering it, and responding only to those painful things that...
His sixth year, it seemed to him, had lasted a remarkably long time and there were points at which he frankly wondered whether he would ever turn seven. But now it was the night before his birthday, a...
Her eyes went to the shelves that stretched up to within a few inches of the ceiling. All four walls were covered; piles of books stood here and there, teetering, vulnerable, she judged, to the slight...
He knew that one should not punch people who annoyed one, although there was a case for it at times, a seemingly irresistible case.
He had sat there with ten glasses set out in front of him, and panicked when he tasted the first. He thought that the wine was Portuguese, and was on the point of setting out the arguments to support...
Giving gave every bit as much pleasure as receiving—if not more, and denying that pleasure to others could be churlish.
French philosophers had been able to admire Mao and his works because they did not have to live in China at the time.
Forgiveness was never easy, but Mma Ramotswe believed in it because she knew that without forgiveness we cluttered our lives with old business.
For that was a very special sort of love, she realised—love given back to one who loved you; that love was like the first rain, the longed-for rain, which washed away the pain and sadness of the world...
For each of us, she thought, there is out completeness in another. Whether we find it, or it finds us, or it eludes all finding is a matter of moral luck.
For a moment, Isabel's eyes met those of someone looking out of the window, a thin-faced woman with her hair done up in a bun. The woman began a smile, but stopped, as if conscious of somehow transgre...
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...
Even a battlefield can be peaceful, can be a place for flowers to grow, for children to play; the memories, the sadness, are within us, not part of the world about us.
Doctors are allowed to tell us things which they might not do themselves. They know what the right thing is, but they may not be able to do it themselves. That does not mean that their advice is bad a...