The Miracle at Speedy Motors Quotes

“The telling of a story, like virtually everything in this life, was always made all the easier by a cup of tea.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“...great things may come from moments of nothingness.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“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.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“Everybody knows, she thought, that we have a skeleton underneath our skin; there's no reason to show it”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“There were times when an apology was best, she thought, even when one really had nothing to apologise for. If only people would say sorry sooner rather than later, Mma Ramotswe believed, much discord and unhappiness could be avoided. But that was not the way people were. So often pride stood in the way of apology, and then, when somebody was ready to say sorry, it was already too late.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“Sometimes it seemed as if the world itself was broken, that there was something wrong with all of us, something broken in such a way that it might not be put together again; but the holding of hands, human hand in human hand, could help, could make the world seem less broken.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“Mma Ramotswe was right: evil repaid with retribution, with punishment, had achieved half its goal; evil repaid with kindness was shown to be what it really was, a small, petty thing, not something frightening at all, but something pitiable, a paltry affair.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“What does it matter, she thought, if businesses are left unattended, if people are not always as we want them to be; we need the time just to be human, to enjoy something like this: a boy chasing ants, a dry land drinking at last, birds in the the sky, a rainbow.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“How remarkable it was, she thought, that we managed to anchor ourselves at all in this world, and that we did so by giving ourselves names and linking those names with places and other people.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“And that is why we must answer her hatred with love. I can't say whether it will change her in her heart - it probably won't. But if it makes her feel even just a little bit better about herself, she will be less envious.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“It is not at all foolish to hope for miracles,”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“Mrs. Moffat had taken her hand, for comfort, and they had sat there in silence for a while. Sometimes it seemed as if the world itself was broken, that there was something wrong with all of us, something broken in such a way that it might not be put together again; but the holding of hands, human hand in human hand, could help, could make the world seem less broken.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“She did not think that those who were late, or the ancestors themselves, would wish punishment upon us, no matter what our transgressions. It was far more likely that there would be love, falling like rain from above, changing the hearts of the wicked; transforming them”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“Small ones too, Mma Sometimes big problems are really tiny ones when you look at them in the right way.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“She would have wished for the suffering of Africa to be relieved, to be legislated out of existence, but it seemed that this would never be, for fundamental unfairness seemed to be a condition of human life. There were rice, there were poor; and whilst one might rail against the injustices which kept people poor, it seemed that these were stubborn to the point of entrenchment. And in the meantime, whilst waiting for justice, or just for a chance, what could one say to the poor, who had only one life, one brief spell of time, and were spending their short moment of life in hardship?”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“...as she drove along this road with all its memories, she put out of her mind the things that had been worrying her. For out here, out in the acacia scrub that stretched away to those tiny island-like hills on the horizon, the concerns of the working world seemed of little weight. Yes, one had to earn a living; yes, one had to work with people who might have their little ways; yes, the world was not always as one might want it to be: but all of that seemed so small and unimportant under this sky. The important thing, and really the only thing, Mma Ramotswe told herself, is that you are breathing and that you can see Botswana about you; that was the only thing that counted. And any person, no matter how poor he might be, could do that. Any woman might drive her tiny white van along this road and feel the warm breeze on her face. That was the important thing.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“Her engagement? That is a long story.” He laughed,”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

“...and although she'd glibly remarked that you couldn't stand still, was this actually true or was it a hollow axiom as false and misleading as any other trite saying? Why should one not stand still? If the position in which one found oneself standing was a satisfactory and comfortable one? She felt no need, no need at all to move on from being Mma Ramotswe of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, wife that great mechanic, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors