The House of Unexpected Sisters Quotes

“Inside every one of us, thought Mma Ramotswe, there is the child we once were, the child that was unsure about the world and our place in it.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“Those images of those old places, the places you come from, never completely disappear. They remain with you, those scraps of memory; those pictures somewhere in your mind of how things were, of what the sun looked like when it shone through the window of your childhood room and caught floating specks of dust in its rays; of how you looked up at the ceiling above your sleeping mat; of the faces of an aunt or a grandparent or a friend; of all the things that once were, in that place that was home to you then, and perhaps are no longer.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“She would give him the benefit of the doubt, as she always did: her experience had taught her that the names we gave to others, and the things we accused them of, often said more about us than they did about them.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“Forgiveness was never easy, but Mma Ramotswe believed in it because she knew that without forgiveness we cluttered our lives with old business.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“Nobody is so bad that there is no chance of change.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“We’ve all had that sort of experience,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Every one of us, Mma. We’ve all had a first day at school, or a first day in a new job. We’ve all been unsure what to do.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“One day, of course, these differences between men and women would disappear—there were signs of that beginning to happen already—but she did not think that day would come at all soon, and she was rather pleased that this was so. God had made things in a certain way, she felt; he had made Africa, he had made Botswana, he had made cattle—and then he made men and women; and he knew what he was doing and we should not be too quick to undo his work.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“The husband should say to the reverend: ‘And I promise not to defy my wife.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“Not forgiving was like scratching at a sore to keep the healing scab from forming.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“But emotions and detective work did not always mix; there was something about that in Clovis Andersen’s The Principles of Private Detection. What had he said? Emotions have the same effect as a magnet has on a compass…Yes, that was it. The needle swings around in a confusing way and you lose direction.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“It is very difficult sometimes to keep upright.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“She smiled at the memory. Her father, her dearest daddy, had become late many years ago now, but she still thought of him every day. Now she remembered his words about ‘the look’ and reminded herself that she used that expression about people, too. Some people had ‘the look’ and others did not. It was something to do with confidence, she thought. You had the look if you knew who you were, what you were doing, and why you were doing it. That bull had the look because he knew that he was good at being a Brahman bull; he knew what was expected of him, and he was not plagued by any doubts. Doubts were the enemy of the look – that was very clear. If you were not sure that you should be doing what you were doing, it showed – and you then became one of those who did not have the look.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“The world could be an unjust place, and you had to get your hands dirty from time to time if you were to do anything about it. Nobody liked having dirty hands, but it was dirty hands that cleared things up. - The House of Unexpected Sisters”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“A new sister is a gift from God, Mma.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“Mma Ramotswe being sad was like a day with no sun, a day with no birdsong at dawn, a day without tea … .”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“I see,” said Mma Ramotswe. Somehow, she could not find the energy to say much more than that; this man was just too exhausting to contradict.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“now: he had a kind wife who had a very good government job and he had a house with new furniture, purchased on his wife’s salary, and a car that went with his wife’s job. All of that was far more important than being noticed by women, and yet, and yet…”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“Were there any idle people left? In the past, there had seemed to be plenty of those, but they had either stopped being idle or had managed to conceal their idleness behind a façade of being busy.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“Of course,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is very important for a matron to be traditionally built. It adds authority.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“Matrons ran hospitals. There may have been doctors around, and some of these doctors may have been allowed to use titles that suggested that they were in charge, but everyone knew that the person doing the real work of running the hospital was Matron.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“Mma Lentswe looked into her teacup. “Children say these things. They never admit they did anything. I was a teacher, Mma—I know that.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“She was thinking about how we measured out our days: for much of the time, this was in years, but there must come a stage when it was in months, and then, at the end, in hours and even minutes. But even when our span was so reduced, the thought was always present that although we might be going, the things and places we loved would still be there. So it must be a consolation to know that there would still be Botswana; that there would still be a sun that would rise over the acacia trees like a great red ball and would set over the Kalahari in a sweep of copper and gold; that there would still be the smell of wood fires in the evening and the sound of the cattle making their slow way home, their gentle bells marking their return to the safety of their enclosure. All these things must make leaving this world less painful.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“Forgiveness was never easy, but Mma Ramotswe believed in it because she knew that without forgiveness we cluttered our lives with old business. Not forgiving was like scratching at a sore to keep the healing scab from forming.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“Families come in different ways... sometimes they are given to you, but sometimes you find them yourself, unexpectedly, as you go through life.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“Offering a lady a chair was one way of showing that this work was appreciated, and that strength and brute force—at which men generally tended to excel—was not the only thing that counted. Respect for ladies tamed men, and there were many men who were sorely in need of taming; that was well known, said Mma Ramotswe.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“we don’t see our parents as people. Your daddy was also a man—a very good man too—but he was a man.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“There were three chairs on the verandah—comfortable old wooden chairs that probably dated from Protectorate days. “The British brought chairs,” Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni once said. “They took chairs with them wherever they went in the world. And they left the chairs behind when they went home.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“Problems have a way of solving themselves.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“the names we gave to others, and the things we accused them of, often said more about us than they did about them.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters

“you did not look for a winner who would take everything; you found a way of allowing people to save face; you found a way of healing rather than imposing.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The House of Unexpected Sisters