The Perfect Passion Company Quotes

“I was taught grammar by Miss Hammond-Brown. You should have seen her. We were just too frightened to end our sentences with a preposition because Miss Hammond-Brown would write, in red pen, on your workbook: See me about this immediately. And you went to see her, and she would grab your upper arm in a vise of a grip and say, "Rules exist to be obeyed, young lady – they are not discretionary – they are mandatory.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Perfect Passion Company

“Sugar – in a cauliflower pie? Apparently so. And then there was the number of grams of salt per hundred milligrams. The small pie, it was revealed, contained thirty-one per cent of an adult's recommended maximum daily intake of salt. This information, at least, was printed in red – a forced concession to legislation that required people to be warned about what they were eating.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Perfect Passion Company

“Beige is such a confession of failure…”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Perfect Passion Company

“My mother died. She was ninety-three and didn't want to be around much longer. One day, she looked at me and said, “Herb, you want to know something? I think I should go ahead and die – no point putting it off.” I said, “You've got years ahead of you, Mom,” but she shook her head, smiled, and died about fifteen minutes later. That's the way to go, I reckon.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Perfect Passion Company

“Few among us, it seemed to her, were reluctant to spend time on that most intriguing of subjects – ourselves.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Perfect Passion Company

“Nominal determinism, she thought: perhaps that applies to companies as much as it does to people. We fulfilled the destiny that our names had in store for us. It was an absurd notion, she reminded herself – of course it was – but then one met carpenters called Sawyer, dentists called McCavity, and mechanics called Ford. There was no shortage of these – each one, of course, a coincidence.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Perfect Passion Company

“Very few people want to hurt other people," she said, which was untrue, she reflected, because she thought there were many who were perfectly content to do just that, and actively sought that precise goal.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Perfect Passion Company