Bertie Plays the Blues Quotes

“The trouble with technology is that it’s dehumanised us – it’s removed the restraints of ordinary human interactions. So we lose the notion that the person with whom we’re dealing is a person like us, with failings and feelings. It’s exactly the same as in wartime. When people are engaged in conflict, they very easily lose sight of the humanity of the other. They become capable of doing things that they would never do in their ordinary lives.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Bertie Plays the Blues

“You know the best example of sincerity? The absolute gold standard?

Who?

Angus pointed to the door, outside which Cyril was waiting patiently. A dog. Have you ever met an insincere dog - a dog who hides his true feelings?
Domenica looked thoughtful.

And cats?

Dreadfully insincere, said Angus. Psychopaths- every one of them. Show me a cat, Domenica, and I'll show you a psychopath. Textbook examples.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Bertie Plays the Blues

“Dear friends, gathered again together in a place That has become so familiar to all of us, We might wish to forget the world outside, Might wish to think that here, with our friends, We are the world. Would that were true: The world outside is not the world We would like it to be; I don’t need To enumerate its woes – they are legion, And greet us each time we open a newspaper. But it would be wrong to become cynical, Would be wrong to dismiss the possibility Of making bearable the suffering of so many By acts of love in our own lives, By acts of friendship, by the simple cherishing Of those who daily cross our path, and those who do not. By these acts, I think, are we shown what might be; By these acts can we transform that small corner Of terra firma that is given to us, In our case this little patch of earth That we call Scotland, into a peaceable Kingdom, a place where love and friendship Are writ large not doubted, nor laughed at, But embraced and proclaimed, made the tenor Of our quotidian lives, made the register In which we conduct ourselves. How foolish I once thought I was To believe in all this; how warmly I now return to that earlier belief; How fervently I hope that it is true, How fervently I hope that this is so.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Bertie Plays the Blues

“Dreadfully insincere,' said Angus. 'Psychopaths - every one of them. Show me a cat, Domenica, and I'll show you a psychopath. Textbook examples.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Bertie Plays the Blues

“...Pat wondered what inspiration an artist might find in the attempts of twenty-first-century architects to impose their phallic triumphs on the cityscape. Had any artist ever painted a contemporary glass block, for instance, or any other product of architectural brutalism that had laid its crude hands here and there upon the city?...If a building did not lend itself to being painted, then surely that must be because it was inherently ugly, whatever its claims to utility. And if it was ugly, then what was it doing in this delicately beautiful city?”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Bertie Plays the Blues

“The trouble with this country...is that we are utterly surrounded by busybodies trying to stop us doing things. Or telling us what to do...Big Brother, with his ubiquitous closed-circuit cameras-which now monitored, it seemed, every square inch of public space-and his condescending imprecations and warnings, was everywhere...In his view, it was up to the individual whether or not to approach a cliff edge; it was not the Government's business.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Bertie Plays the Blues

“Self-pity does not appreciate pedantry.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Bertie Plays the Blues

“Big Lou came from a Scotland that had been diluted in Edinburgh, a Scotland of unfussy, hardworking people who had no time for artifice or pretension, as hard-wearing and weatherproof as the land that produced them.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Bertie Plays the Blues

“my wife.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Bertie Plays the Blues

“tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Bertie Plays the Blues

“Computers change the way we deal with words,” Dr. Macgregor continued. “They somehow unlock language in the mind. But they do so in a very particular way – they induce … well, I suppose we should call it logorrhoea, a sort of verbal diarrhoea. The words come tumbling out and people feel they can go on and on. And they do. Poetry has to be much more disciplined, much more concise.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Bertie Plays the Blues

“Men talked about things that happened in the world, about events; women, by contrast, talked amongst themselves about being in the world. The difference was crucial.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Bertie Plays the Blues

“He represents innocence, and innocence has taken such a profound battering in our times. We have mocked it. We have sullied it. We have put it in intensive care, and frankly, I don’t see how it can survive. And yet here and there one sees flickers of its light – just flickers. And so we know that innocence isn’t entirely dead.” Angus”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Bertie Plays the Blues

“It is undoubtedly the case that the practice of the virtues makes one happier. We’ve somewhat lost sight of that essential truth, now that we, as a society, admire selfishness and vanity so much.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Bertie Plays the Blues