Alexander McCall Smith
Alexander McCall Smith
R. Alexander "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE, is a British writer and Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. In the late 20th century, McCall Smith became a respected expert on medical law and bioethics and served on British and international committees concerned with these issues...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth24 August 1948
widowhood would-be should
There are many women whose lives would be immeasurably improved by widowhood, but one should not always point that out.
kindness men thinking
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.
age faces bears
Writers obviously have to bear witness to the harsh face of the age.
love essentials
The point about love, the essential point, was that we loved what we loved. We did not choose. We just loved.
love lying people
But don't we often lie to people we love, or not tell them things, precisely because we love them?
evil battle stories
The good were worthy of note because they battled and that battle was a great story, whereas the evil were evil because of moral laziness, or weakness, and that was ultimately a dull and uninteresting affair.
mother running daughter
Daughters could survive a powerful mother, but boys found it almost impossible. Such boys were often severely damaged and spent the rest of their lives running away from their mothers, or from anybody who remotely reminded them of their mothers; either that, or they became their mothers, in a desperate, misguided act of psychological self defence.
heavyweights persons prepared
Do not take on a traditionally built person unless you are prepared for a heavyweight bout.
love heart people
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.
life land feet
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.
thinking moments
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.
mma cake temptation
We are all tempted, Mma. We are all tempted when it comes to cake.
creating order creative
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.
book perspective world
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.