She was tuned in to a different station from most people and the tuning dial was broken.
It was a good thing to be an African. There were terrible things that happened in Africa, things that brought shame and despair when one thought about them, but that was not all there was in Africa. H...
There are so many ways of falling off the high moral ground you’ve carefully built up for yourself. Moral ground is like that—slippery at the edges.
She watched him take the trumpet from its case and fit the mouthpiece. She watched as he raised it to his lips and then, so suddenly, from that tiny cup of metal against his flesh, the sound would bur...
Non omnis moriar, said Horace’s Odes—I shall not wholly die. Yes, and he was right. As long as people remembered, then death was not complete. Only if there were nobody at all left to remember would d...
Look at those clouds, said Jamie, gazing up at the sky. Look at them. Yes, said Isabel. They're very beautiful, aren't they? Clouds are very beautiful and yet so often we fail to appreciate them prope...
Gracious acceptance is an art - an art which most never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder than giving.......
A traditional house smelled of wood smoke, the earth, and of thatch; all good smells, the smell of life itself.
It's through the small things that we develop our moral imagination, so that we can understand the sufferings of others.
Who is happier, those who are aware, and doubt, or those who are sure of what they believe in, and have never doubted or questioned it? The answer, she had concluded, was that this had nothing to do w...
She was made for untidy rooms and rumpled beds.
Mr Mandela, who had given his whole life for justice and had never once thought of himself. How unlike these people were modern politicians, who thought only of power and tricks.
Mma Ramotswe reflected on how easy it was to find oneself committed to a course of action simply because one lacked the courage to say no.
In an earlier age, it might have been possible to believe that goodness would prevail over pride, but not anymore. The proud could be proud with impunity, because there was nobody to contradict him in...
Memories of that which we have lost are curious things - weeks, months, even years may pass without recollection of them and then, quite suddenly, something will remind us of a lost friend, or of a fa...
…the world was a vale of tears—it always had been.
People are very slow to say sorry. I
Waiting in the reception area, she had flicked through a news magazine that had been lying on the table for clients to read while waiting for their appointment. On the cover there had been a picture o...
The Germans had a word for everything – a word that could be very focused, very specific, because it could be constructed for a precise set of circumstances. They even had a word, it was said, for the...
Nobody enjoys being on display, said Isabel. But then she thought: Some do, and so she added, Except actors. And narcissists.