Emma Quotes

“She remembered love, though, and a feeling of warmth. It was like remembering light, or the glow that sometimes persists after a light has gone out.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“She had, Emma decided, a very particular beauty about her, a quality that required more than the possession of conventionally attractive features. Good looks could be a cliché, which meant that those who satisfied the normal criteria of beauty could fail its more subtle tests. Thus it was that those with very regular features could just miss being beautiful because they lacked some tiny human imperfection, some irregularity that imparted to their appearance the poignancy, the reminder of ordinary humanity, on which real beauty depended. It was quite possible to be too perfect, and end up being plastic, as Hollywood stars so often were, with their well-placed curves or sculpted chins. The heart would not stop at such features, whereas it might well do so when a snub nose, or one not quite dead-center, or ears that were just slightly too large, were combined with eyes that seem to reflect and enhance the light, or with lips that formed a tantalizing bow, or with perfectly unblemished skin.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“It was, he thought, his gesture against the whole pro-euthanasia movement that talked so glibly of choice without realising the fire with which one played when tinkering with fragile taboos against killing others. Yes, he thought, Mrs Bates's life did not seem to amount to much, but to her it was all she had.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“Emma was happy. She realized that happiness is something that springs from the generous treatment of others, and that until one makes that connection, happiness may prove elusive.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“To dispatch one's friends to a dictionary from time to time is one of the more sophisticated pleasures of life, but it is one that must be indulged in sparingly: to do it too often may result in accusations of having swallowed one's own dictionary, which is not a compliment, whichever way one looks at it.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“And she lowered her eyes at the gentle reproach, for she had learned her lesson, even if there would be occasional, but only very occasional, relapses; for none of us is perfect, except, of course, the ones we love, the things of home, our much appreciated dogs and cats, our favourites of one sort or another.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“I see that Emma’s playing Erik Satie,” he said to Mr. Woodhouse. “That’s one of the Gymnopédies, isn’t it?” “I believe it is,” said Mr. Woodhouse. “I don’t care for it very much. In fact, it gives me the creeps. It’s the sort of thing a spider would play if spiders played the piano.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“If you were a Catholic,” said Mr. Woodhouse, “you would have no difficulty with the idea of sitting around and doing nothing. That has never been a problem for Catholicism; it is only the Protestant outlook that makes us feel guilty about not being busy.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“This had happened because she had been able to make that sudden imaginative leap that lies at the heart of our moral lives: the ability to see, even for a brief moment, the world as it is seen by the other person. It is this understanding that lies behind all kindness to others, all attempts to ameliorate the situation of those who suffer, all those acts of charity by which we make our lives something more than the pursuit of the goals of the unruly ego.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“When Emma was five, Mrs. Woodhouse died. Emma did not remember her mother. She remembered love, though, and a feeling of warmth. It was like remembering light, or the glow that sometimes persists after a light has gone out.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“There are some people who start off knowing very little about the world and end up years later knowing even less. Never underestimate the capacity of the human mind for ignorance.” Mr. Woodhouse found this very amusing.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“When somebody does wrong, Emma, we must remember that that person is still a human being like the rest of us. We must not rush to throw the first stone. We must remind ourselves that all of us do wrong from time to time, unless we're saints, which we aren't.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“Crisis. It was a time of sustained anxiety for anybody who read a newspaper or listened to the news on the radio, and that included his mother, Mrs. Florence Woodhouse, who was anxious at the best of times and even more so at the worst. What was the point of continuing the human race when nuclear self-immolation seemed to be such a real and imminent possibility? That was the question that occurred to Florence as she was admitted to the delivery ward of a small country hospital in Norfolk.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“What planet are you on, Emma?’ To which Emma had replied, ‘Same as you, but perhaps at a higher level.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“I shall never completely understand the English,’ muttered Miss Taylor.

‘Don’t try,’ said Mr Woodhouse. ‘There are some things that pass all understanding, as they say.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“moral insight came to her—something that may happen to all of us, if it happens at all, at very different stages of our lives. This had happened because she had been able to make that sudden imaginative leap that lies at the heart of our moral lives: the ability to see, even for a brief moment, the world as it is seen by the other person. It is this understanding that lies behind all kindness to others, all attempts to ameliorate the situation of those who suffer, all those acts of charity by which we make our lives something more than the pursuit of the goals of the unruly ego.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“Miss Taylor smiled. “I shall assume that the verb in that sentence you’ve just uttered is implied, and that the phrase that you had in mind was That doesn’t include…which would, of course, justify the use of the accusative me, rather than the nominative I. I assume that.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“It will be good for them to get out of London and get some country air. All those people in London breathing the air in and out; just think of it, Emma. Just think of all that breathing going on in London—it’s a wonder there’s any air left for the rest of us.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“He’s not too bad, actually. If you don’t mind him going on about Byzantium, he can be quite nice.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“Cadit quaestio,” muttered Emma, under her breath. “Sed quaestio manet.” She had asked her Latin teacher at school for a suitable rebuttal to cadit quaestio, and she had said that one might retort: But the question still remains, and that could be rendered sed quaestio manet. That was to put it simply, she explained. Simpliciter. Emma loved Latin because it gave her a sort of power. At school she had tossed a Latin phrase at a boy who had been staring at her in a disconcerting way, and he had been crushed—there was only one word for it: crushed.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“The photograph had to be reasonably interesting. Country Life girls did not simply sit for the camera against some featureless backdrop but were pictured striking a pose in surroundings that gave an indication of their normal social milieu or talents. The daughters of major gentry—those with stately homes—might be photographed leaning against a stone pillar, the clear inference being that this was just one of the many stone pillars owned by her father; those who had no stone pillars but who had, say, a small ornamental lake, would be photographed standing in front of this. Those who worked with horses—and this was a large group—might have a hunter in the background, or at least a saddle. Dogs were a popular accoutrement, usually Labradors, who would be at the young woman’s side, ready to retrieve or flush birds, enthusiasts all, and given the same appraising scrutiny by the readers, in many cases, as the young woman herself.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“Most of us are quite selfish when it comes to our children, you know. We want things from them: love, the satisfaction of seeing them do well, and so on. Plenty of parents don't think just of their child's best interest. Oh, they may pay lip service to it, but they really think of themselves, of what they get from parenting.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“people”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“To dispatch one's friends to a dictionary from time to time is one of the more sophisticated pleasures of life, but it is one that must be indulged in sparingly: to do it too often may result in accusations of having swallowed one's own dictionary, which is not a compliment whichever way one looks at it.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling

“That sent her friends to the dictionary, which gave her additional satisfaction. To dispatch one's friends to a dictionary from time to time is one of the more sophisticated pleasures of life, but it is one that must be indulged in sparingly: to do it too often may result in accusations of having swallowed one's own dictionary, which is not a compliment, whichever way one looks at it.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Emma: A Modern Retelling