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
cutting pride technology
Oh I love gadgets and I pride myself on keeping at the cutting edge of technology.
character people mixtures
Some of my characters are a mixture of various aspects of people I have met. others are pure invention.
running believe thinking
We need to believe I think in justice. We need to run our lives as if justice existed. If we abandon a belief that justice will eventually be done, we make this world much more difficult for ourselves.
book mean writing
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.
latin school italian
I can read more languages than I speak! I speak French and Italian - not very well, alas, but I can get by. I read German and Spanish. I can read Latin (I did a lot of Latin at school.) I'm afraid I do not speak any African languages, although I can understand a little bit of the Zulu-related languages, but only a tiny bit.
people important abandon
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.
thinking fiction helping
I enjoy women's conversation, and I think that helps me to describe them in fiction.
block thinking concern-for-others
What I really like investigating in my novels: what is it that makes an intimate society, that makes a society in which moral concern for others will be possible? Part of that I think are manners and ritual. We tried to get rid of manners, we tried to abolish manners in the '60s. Manners were very, very old-fashioned and un-cool. And of course we didn't realise that manners are the building blocks of proper moral relationships between people.
book writing two
If you want to write, do two things - read lots of books and also, in your own writing, practise. Just write and write and then write again. persist. And never be put off or discouraged. You can do it!
writing thinking negative
Life consists of positive and negative features, and I think that it is permissible to write about both.
joy world emotion
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.
acceptance scotland united-states
Whatever Scotland was, it was not a matriarchy; whereas the United States was a profoundly matriarchal society - and much more feminine than would be suggested by all that male bravado. That was a front, and a misleading one at that; underneath the male swagger lay a passive acceptance of female dominance - a fact not always appreciated by outsiders.
three older-sister large-family
I have three older sisters, so we were a reasonably large family and, in general, a happy one.
men dust looks
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.