Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When you allow people to do what they wish, then that is what they do. They stop doing the things they need to do.
There are many women whose lives would be immeasurably improved by widowhood, but one should not always point that out.
It's through the small things that we develop our moral imagination, so that we can understand the sufferings of others.
Botswana is actually very peaceful. It's democratic. It never was in debt. They've been fortunate, they've had diamonds.
As a writer, you have to realize that people want to like the characters, so you have to be careful to keep them involved.
As a writer, I have readers who will have a range of political views. I don't think they look to me for political guidance.
I just focus on getting the first scene right, with a few lines about the overall plot, and then the book grows organically.
The previously unloved may find it hard to believe that they are now loved; that is such a miracle, they feel; such a miracle.
You're always told by your publisher that you must only write one book a year and some years you should perhaps write none at all.
None of us knows how we will cope with snakes until the moment arises, and then most of us find out that we do not do it very well.
[Edinburgh] is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas. A city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again.
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.
I've also long since realized that the way to really engage children is to give out prizes; it's amazing how it concentrates their minds.
With '44 Scotland Street' I found myself having to work out how a daily novel works, and it is completely different to a conventional novel.
Our minds can come up with the most entertaining possibilities, if we let them. But most of the time, we keep them under far too close a check.
Wherever I go in the world, people all know about Scotland Street and are always asking me about what's going to happen to the characters next.
I am just a tiny person in Africa, but there is a place for me, and for everybody, to sit down on this earth and touch it and call it their own.
Do you realise that people die of boredom in London suburbs? It's the second biggest cause of death amongs the English in general. Sheer boredom...
The Okavango Delta is an astonishing sight: the great Okavango River, rather than flow towards the sea, flows inland, into the sands of the Kalahari.
I write four or five a books a year. That means that I usually have one on the go. I am fortunate in being able to write quickly - 1000 words an hour.
We should be careful of the insults we fling at others, lest they return and land at our feet, newly minted to apply to those who had first coined them.
And that, in a way, was the burden of being a philosopher: one knew what one had to do, but it was so often the opposite of what one really wanted to do.
It was easy to be moral when that was the way you felt anyway. The hard bit about morality was making yourself feel the opposite of what you really felt.
I am often thanked by people for inventing the term traditionally built. The people who give me thanks for this are often traditionally built themselves.
I have always taken the view that one should never hold against a man anything he says after twelve o'clock at night or after a glass or two of anything.
I would certainly never consider myself a Renaissance Man; I'm not fit to look at the dust from the chariot wheels of many of those who have gone before me.
Each of us is born into our own mysteries but the mystery of another might just take us in and embrace us. And then what a sense of homecoming, of belonging!
We all know that it is women who take the decisions, but we have to let men think that the decisions are theirs. It is an act of kindness on the part of women.
Baboons take a bit of getting to know but, apparently, once you break the ice, so to speak, they are complex and interesting creatures with elaborate societies.
A life without stories would be no life at all. And stories bound us, did they not, one to another, the living to the dead, people to animals, people to the land?
I've always had a creative urge and I get immense satisfaction from creating something because it feels like I'm making sense of the world and imposing order on it.
As a writer I've learned certain lessons. One of them is to be careful about how you put a view, and to bear in mind how easily and readily you'll be misinterpreted.
Many of my books are written from a female perspective. I rather enjoy the take that women have on the world, and certainly I enjoy the conversations that women have.
Everybody has friends they dislike; people who they have slipped into relationships with, people they would not have chosen had they been more cautious, more circumspect.
But you cannot expect every writer to dwell on human suffering. I think my books do deal with grave issues. People who say they are too positive probably havent read them.
But you cannot expect every writer to dwell on human suffering. I think my books do deal with grave issues. People who say they are too positive probably haven't read them.
That of all people, it should be him; that took her aback. That the heart should settle on somebody like him; that surprised her. But she was so certain about it, so certain.
Well, Id say all of us are a combination of moods and emotions. In my day to day life I dont go around skipping, but at times one can feel sheer exhilarating joy at the world.
To lose a child ... was something that could end one's world. One could never get back to how it was before. The stars went out. The moon disappeared. The birds became silent.
Well, I'd say all of us are a combination of moods and emotions. In my day to day life I don't go around skipping, but at times one can feel sheer exhilarating joy at the world.
Be content with who you are and where you are, and do whatever you can do to bring to others such contentment, and joy, and understanding that you have managed to find yourself.
Ritual is a terribly important, binding cement in a society. If we abandon formality and rituals, we're actually weakening the relationships that exist between people that bind.
My parents were very supportive and always encouraged us. My father was a gentle, nice man. My mother was quite a colorful character and a keen reader who encouraged me to write.
I've certainly always had a very high regard for Botswana and so I paint a very good picture of the country and I've never pretended to be painting an entirely realistic picture.
My parents were very supportive and always encouraged us. My father was a gentle, nice man. My mother was quite a colourful character and a keen reader who encouraged me to write.
There is this intimacy still in Botswana. It's a country of just under two million people, and there's this sense of connectedness, in that people tend to be related to one another.
I would never inflict my bassoon on anybody really other than the long suffering audiences that come to the concerts of The Really Terrible Orchestra; which actually is really terrible.
Fiction is able to encompass books that are bleak and which dwell on the manifold and terrible problems of our times. But I don't think that all books need to have that particular focus.
Dating is really all about sex. In the conventional context, this means that the man invites the woman to go through a social encounter, the ultimate purpose of which is sexual engagement.
It would be wonderful to have a guru; it would be like having a social worker or a personal trainer, not that people who had either of these necessarily appreciated the advice they received.