My Italian Bulldozer Quotes

“I suppose that's the way affairs come to an end. Somebody grabs a fork and stabs the other in the hand. And that's it”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer

“She was, he reflected, one of his closest friends, in a rather curious, slightly old-fashioned way.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer

“Not all taxi drivers, Paul had discovered, actually wanted to take passengers to their destination; some of them, he felt, were in it for the arguments, or the opportunity to pontificate, or for the sheer pleasure of driving past those trying to summon them at the road edge. He made up his mind. What was the point of having a bulldozer if you were not going to make at least some use of it?”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer

“Love of what you do is unmistakable in the care with which you do it,”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer

“often our tears have no particular justification; they are tears for something larger about the world than any private sorrow.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer

“One never gets anywhere unless one leaves,”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer

“the past has a much bigger shadow than people believe. It’s still with us in so many ways. At our side all the time, whispering into our ear.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer

“misery was nothing to do with objective good fortune. Misery was like bad weather; it was just there, and no number of optimistic comments could make the weather better.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer

“Sometimes, you know, good things have to be done—they just have to be done. And most of us—myself included—are too timid to do them. Fortunately, there are brave people who are prepared to take the risk, who do these things, often in such a way that nobody can see them. They say, The world doesn’t have to be the way it is; we can change it. That’s what they say—and then they do it.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer

“La bella figura...it's at the heart of Italian life...it's about doing things beautifully.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer

“He felt the touch of cool air wafted out from the interior of the church—the feeble breath of a dying building.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer

“There was always injustice in any border, in anything. You drew a line and there was always somebody just on the other side; on one side of an arbitrary line there could be happiness and prosperity, on the other misery. But he did not say this.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer

“He decided there was a lot to be said for bulldozers. They were honest vehicles—honest in the sense that they did not purport to be anything other than what they were.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer

“Well, that’s an interesting case. With us, the important thing to remember is that we are very young. We have lots of history, of course, but Italy itself is a teenager. The Risorgimento was really just yesterday, you’ll know. It ended in 1871. That’s yesterday. And that means that, as a state, we are still very far from maturity. That’s why half the population doesn’t really believe that the Italian state exists—or, if it does, they feel that they owe it nothing. We’re very disloyal to Rome, you know. We look after ourselves—our family, our city—and we don’t like paying taxes to Rome.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer

“He did not sleep well.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer

“nous”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer

“Love of what you do is unmistakable in the care with which you do it, whether it is seen in the way in which an artist applies the final touch of paint to his canvas, a master carpenter sands the last touch of roughness from the surface of the wood, or a woman making pasta kneads the compliant dough, draws it out, coaxes it to the right consistency.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer

“the”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer

“That is why the artist will always be happy—no matter how the world treats him. If he knows that what he creates is good, then he can bear the indifference of others.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, My Italian Bulldozer