How to Raise an Elephant (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #21)

by Alexander McCall Smith

Everybody wanted to look after the world, but nobody wanted to give up anything they already had.

Do not think that in any case where there are two competing arguments one of them has to be right: both can be wrong.

And that somehow made it easier for both of them; and so she had decided that even if there were no angels, we might still wish to believe in them because that made our life more bearable, and she was not ashamed to think like that.

You had to look after other people because if you did not, then the world was a cold and lonely place, a place where, if you stumbled, there would be no hand to pull you to your feet.