Blue Shoes and Happiness Quotes

“Well, that's the important thing, isn't it, Mma? To feel happiness, and then to remember it.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“Most problems could be diminished by the drinking of tea and the thinking through of things that could be done while tea was being drunk. And even if that did not solve problems, at least it could put them off for a little while, which we sometimes needed to do, we really did.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“Dieting was cruel; it was an abuse of human rights. Yes, that's what it was, and she should not allow herself to be manipulated in this way. She stopped herself. Thinking like that was nothing more than coming up with excuses for breaking the diet. Mma Ramotswe was made of sterner stuff than that, and so she persisted.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“None of us knows how we will cope with snakes until the moment arises, and then most of us find out that we do not do it very well.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“None of us knows how we will cope with snakes until the moment arises, and then most of us find out that we do not do it very well. Snakes were one of the tests which life sent for us, and there was no telling how we might respond until the moment arrived. Snakes and men. These were the things sent to try women, and the outcome was not always what we might want it to be.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“Anybody can lose,' cautioned Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. 'You need to remember that every time you win.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“To use strong language, she thought, was a sign of bad temper and lack of concern for others. Such people were not clever or bold simply because they used such language; each time they opened their mouths they proclaimed I am a person who is poor in words.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“We were all people—men and women—and you could never say that one group of people was less important than another.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“They are a bit small for me, Mma,” she confessed. “I think you were right. But I felt great happiness when I wore them, and I shall always remember that. They are such beautiful shoes." Mma Ramotswe laughed. “Well, that's the important thing, isn't it, Mma? To feel happiness, and then to remember it." “I think that you're right,“ said Mma Makutsi. Happiness was an elusive thing. It had something to do with having beautiful shoes, sometimes; but it was about so much else. About a country. About a people. About having friends like this.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“...when she had those dreams at night, he was there, as if he had never died, although she knew, even in the dream, that he had. One day she would join him, she knew, whatever people said about how we came to an end when we took our last breath. Some people mocked you if you said that you joined others when your time came. Well, they could laugh, those clever people, but we surely had to hope, and a life without hope of any sort was no life: it was a sky without stars, a landscape of sorrow and emptiness.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“Such men knew their worth, but did not flaunt it. Such men could look anybody in the eye without flinching; even a poor man, a man with nothing, could stand upright in the presence of those who had wealth or power. People did not know, Mma Ramotswe felt, just how much we had in those days—those days when we seemed to have so little, we had so much. She”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“it was difficult to think what to do, and, as she often did in such circumstances, Mma Ramotswe decided that the best thing to do would be to go shopping.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“[...]there was always a part of the human mind that was prepared to entertain such notions, particularly at night, in the world of shadows, when there were sounds that one could not understand and when each one of us was in some sense alone.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“It was as if a drought had ended—a drought that had made for expanses of silence, as drought will dry up a salt pan and render it white and powdery—and the words were like longed-for rain, turning the land green at last.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“That was part of being a woman, she thought; one never reached the end. Even if one could sit down and drink a cup of bush tea, or even two cups, one always knew that at the end of the tea somebody was waiting for something. Children or men were waiting to be fed; a dirty floor cried out to be washed; a crumpled skirt called for the iron. And so it would continue. Tea was just a temporary solution to the cares of the world, although it certainly helped. Perhaps she should write and tell Aunty Emang that. Most problems could be diminished by the drinking of tea and the thinking through of things that could be done while tea was being drunk. And even if that did not solve problems, at least it could put them off for a little while, which we sometimes needed to do, we really did.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“Keep your mouth shut at all times, but at the same time encourage others to do precisely the opposite.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“Women always had private business to raise with men [...] There was always something going on in the background—some plotting or mulling over some slight or lack of attention, quite unintended, of course, but noted and filed away for subsequent scrutiny. And much of the time men would be unaware of it, until it all came out in a torrent of recrimination and tears.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, blue shoes and happiness (No 1 Ladies Detective Agency

“There was always something going on in the background—some plotting or mulling over some slight or lack of attention, quite unintended, of course, but noted and filed away for subsequent scrutiny. And much of the time men would be unaware of it, until it all came out in a torrent of recrimination and tears.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, blue shoes and happiness (No 1 Ladies Detective Agency

“At the end of the story, Dr Moffat shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid that the only conclusion we can reach is that this Dr Lubega is substituting a cheap generic for a costly drug but charging his patients the full cost.” “And that would harm them?” she asked. “It could,” said Dr Moffat. “Some of the generics are all right, but others do not necessarily do what they’re meant to. There’s an issue of purity, you see.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“At the end of the story, Dr Moffat shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid that the only conclusion we can reach is that this Dr Lubega is substituting a cheap generic for a costly drug but charging his patients the full cost.” “And that would harm them?” she asked. “It could,” said Dr Moffat. “Some of the generics are all right, but others do not necessarily do what they’re meant to.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“Some people mocked you if you said that you joined others when your time came. Well, they could laugh, those clever people, but we surely had to hope, and a life without hope of any sort was no life: it was a sky without stars, a landscape of sorrow and emptiness.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“As they left the shop, Mma Ramotswe made amends and told Mma Makutsi that she really thought the blue shoes very beautiful. There was no point in disapproving of a purchase once the deed had been done.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“It was an innocent enough activity, after all; like looking at the sky, perhaps, when the sun was going down and had made the clouds copper-red, or looking at a herd of fine cattle moving slowly over the land when rains had brought on the sweet green grass. These were pleasures which the soul needed from time to time, and she would wait for Mma Makutsi until she had examined the shoes from all angles.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“But that miracle would eventually arrive, as it always had, and the landscape would turn from brown to green within hours under the kiss of the rain. And there were other colours that would follow the green; yellows, blues, reds would appear in patches across the veld as if great cakes of dye had been crumbled and scattered by an unseen hand.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“She moved, so that they were now standing arm in arm: two ladies, she thought, a brown lady from Botswana and a white lady from somewhere far away, America perhaps, somewhere like that, some place of neatly cut lawns and air conditioning and shining buildings, some place where people wanted to love others if only given the chance.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“wise men are remembered, they always are.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“Cake,” said Mma Ramotswe quickly. “That is Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s great weakness. He cannot help himself when it comes to cake. He can be manipulated very easily if he has a plate of cake in his hand.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“was particularly hard for women now, when there were so many children left without”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness

“were in need of bodywork. It had always amused”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Blue Shoes and Happiness