The Second-Worst Restaurant in France Quotes

“I thought the definition of an educated person was one who at least knows what’s in the great books he or she hasn’t read” (p. 169).”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Second Worst Restaurant in France

“Do you know what makes for a good still life? I’ll tell you: it’s when the painter manages to convey a sense that something is about to happen. The objects in the painting all look immobile, but as you contemplate them you begin to feel that at any moment there could be movement. Somebody might come into the room. A storm might blow up outside. The wind will move the curtains. All of these things might happen.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Second-Worst Restaurant in France

“Exactement,” said Chloe. “And in view of this relationship I feel that I can speak to you directly—without sautéeing my words.” “Mincing,” said Paul. “Perhaps, but mince is so rare these days—metaphors must keep up to date.” She paused. “Does anybody eat mince any longer, Paul? You should know, I suppose.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Second-Worst Restaurant in France

“Eating with others was different from just talking to them—it was an act of commitment, a recognition of shared humanity. We all share these physical needs, it said; we are brothers and sisters in our vulnerability.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Second-Worst Restaurant in France

“One was a bourgeois revolution against a socialist government; the other was the other way round. Both ended up with the same people being in power, but pretending to be different.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Second-Worst Restaurant in France

“We French people sometimes appear rude but are not really intending to be rude. It is because…” He shrugged. “Perhaps it’s something to do with our language. French may sound a bit arrogant sometimes. As if it’s God talking, perhaps. You know how God talks. French suits him very well, I think.” Annabelle laughed. “The English used to say that God spoke English. But we knew he spoke French all along.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Second-Worst Restaurant in France

“Paul awoke the next morning he felt the momentary disorientation that sometimes comes with being transported, too quickly, from one world to another: the discovery that the windows, and the light they allow through the chinks in the shutters, are in unexpected places; that the usual sounds of the morning—the slight hum of traffic, the occasional voice drifting up from the street below, the familiar creaks and sighs of even the most solidly built house—either are absent or sound different.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Second-Worst Restaurant in France

“It was typical of so many rural French restaurants, with its air of quiet assurance, a sense of being what it was and nothing more.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Second-Worst Restaurant in France

“Annabelle finished the explanation. “It’s just that they take some time to happen. That’s the difference.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Second-Worst Restaurant in France

“Two mountains in Greece, you see: Virgil refers to piling Pelion upon Ossa as a metaphor for adding one very large thing to another—going too far, in other words.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Second-Worst Restaurant in France

“Baked dough—one of the great smells…He stopped himself; that was the sort of pronouncement that Chloe made, and he must avoid becoming like her, or he would end up making sweeping statements about Russians, just as she did.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Second-Worst Restaurant in France

“The way to leave this life, I always say: some sudden, cataclysmic disaster and whoosh, you’re propelled into the next world—or oblivion. One might take one’s pick.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Second-Worst Restaurant in France

“Largeness,” said Paul, as he thought this through, “is measured on the inside rather than the outside.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Second-Worst Restaurant in France

“It transpired that he was an electricity thief. We would have imagined many things of which he might be guilty—many unspeakable things…”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Second-Worst Restaurant in France

“If you don’t have things to keep you busy, you end up starting fights with your neighbours.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Second-Worst Restaurant in France

“So they decided to consult a cousin who was a prominent psychiatrist. He examined Antonio—whom he knew well, anyway—and declared him insane, which of course he wasn’t, even by Italian standards.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Second-Worst Restaurant in France

“As a general rule, making other people happy is one of the few things we can do with utter certainty that what we’re doing is the right thing.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Second-Worst Restaurant in France