Espresso Tales Quotes

“There are many women whose lives would be immeasurably improved by widowhood, but one should not always point that out.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales

“She had to tell somebody, and Matthew would do. He would not be particularly interested, she knew, but she would tell him anyway. She had to share her joy, as Lou knew that joy unshared was a halved emotion, just as sadness and loss, when borne alone, were often doubled.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales

“I have a feeling that we've seen the dismantling of civilisation, brick by brick, and now we're looking into the void. We thought that we were liberating people from oppressive cultural circumstances, but we were, in fact, taking something away from them. We were killing off civility and concern. We were undermining all those little ties of loyalty and consideration and affection that are necessary for human flourishing. We thought that tradition was bad, that it created hidebound societies, that it held people down. But, in fact, what tradition was doing all along was affirming community and the sense that we are members of one another. Do we really love and respect one another more in the absence of tradition and manners and all the rest? Or have we merely converted one another into moral strangers - making our countries nothing more than hotels for the convenience of guests who are required only to avoid stepping on the toes of other guests?”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales

“And the problem was that there was a positive epidemic of narcissism, encouraged by commercial manipulation and by the shallow values of Hollywood films. And interestingly enough, the real growth area was male narcissism.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales

“…She had been perfectly happy before she had met him; indeed she had been even slightly happier then. So the inscription might more accurately have read: “To remind you of how happy you’ve been in Edinburgh, in spite of the memories of me.” But people never wrote that sort of brutally honest thing in books, largely because people very rarely have a clear idea of the effect that they have on other people, or can bring themselves to admit it. And Bruce, as Sally had discovered, lacked both insight into himself and an understanding of how somebody like her might feel about somebody like him…”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales

“A nudist? In Edinburgh? Does he realise what parallel we’re on?”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales

“stooshie,”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales

“There was that quality of sensitivity, that look in his eyes that told her, and everybody else who cared to look for it, that he understood, but, at the same time, that he was elsewhere.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales

“For that, surely, is what friendship is all about–about the giving of love and the assurance of love.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales

“The world was a lonely place, a place of transience, of change, of loss; only the bonds, the ties of friendship and family protect us from the loneliness”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales

“Angus smiled. “So nothing’s certain, then?” “That’s right,” said Big Lou. “Except death and taxes,” interjected Matthew. “Isn’t that how the saying goes?” “They don’t pay taxes in Italy,” observed Angus. “I knew a painter in Naples who never paid taxes–ever. Very good painter too.” “What happened to him?” asked Matthew. “He died,” said Angus. 33.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales

“Back home in Arbroath, they had thought that she was just a girl–she had heard one of her male relatives say just that–and that somebody who was just a girl had nothing really important to say about anything.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales

“But the real question, boys, is this: do we have a duty to do anything to stop things we may not like? Is it all right just to do nothing, provided that we don’t do anything that makes matters worse?”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales

“Don’t be excessively judgmental, if you like, but always–always–be prepared to make a judgment. Otherwise you’ll go through life not really knowing what you mean.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales

“Number 1,” read Dr Fairbairn. “People making me do things I don’t want to do. I hate this. I hate this. Every day I have to do things that other people want me to do and it leaves me no time to do any of the things I want to do. And nobody asks me what I want to do, anyway.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales

“been able to find out what the really big questions are.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales

“If one could not remember somebody’s trousers, then jeans were the safe default. Indeed, “defaults” was a good name for jeans. I put on my defaults. It sounded quite right.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales

“It was true, of course, there was an abnormal level of narcissism in our society, but it did not do, he told himself, to spend too much time going on about it. Society changed. Narcissism was about love, ultimately, even if only love of self. And that was better than hate. By and large, Hate, of all the tempting gods, was the unhappiest today. He had his recruits, naturally, but they were relatively few, and vilified. Did it matter if young men thought of fashion and hair gel when, not all that many years ago, their thoughts had tended to turn to war and flags and the grim partisanship of the football terrace?”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales