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
inspirational stars children
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.
philosophy life-is life-philosophy
That my philosophy of life is, as far as possible, one of enjoyment. I'm not nihilistic.
inspirational-life animal land
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?
tiny earth persons
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.
taken night men
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.
dog lions silliness
Dogs are in on our human silliness; lions are not.
people cautious chosen
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.
fun having-fun
I am easily persuaded to continue to have fun.
sight attachment people
It seems to me that we're in danger of losing sight of certain basic civic values in society by allowing the growth of a whole generation of people who really have no sense of attachment to society.
book thinking issues
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.
wedding real simple
A wedding was a strange ceremony, she thought, with all those formal words, those solemn vows made by one to another; whereas the real question that should be put to the two people involved was a very simple one. Are you happy with each other? was the only question that should be asked; to which they both should reply, preferably in unison, Yes.
snakes moments arise
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.
people wish needs
When you allow people to do what they wish, then that is what they do. They stop doing the things they need to do.
play people giving
My wife Elizabeth and I started The Really Terrible Orchestra for people like us who are pretty hopeless musicians who would like to play in an orchestra. It has been a great success. We give performances; weve become the most famous bad orchestra in the world.