A Promise of Ankles Quotes

“The loudly good are often not the best of people; the intuitively good, to whom it may not occur ever to discuss what they do, let alone why they do it, may be morally unsung, but are heroes nonetheless.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“He was doubtful. “I don’t know… What’s that famous line? When I became a man, I put away childish things…?” Nicola smiled. “Yes, yes, Stuart, but I happen to know what C. S. Lewis said about that.” Stuart waited. If somebody threatened to quote C. S. Lewis to you, there’s not much one could do but wait. “C. S. Lewis said, ‘When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.’ ” She looked at Stuart unflinchingly. “And all I would add to that is mutatis mutandis in relation to the man bit.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“Down below, amongst children, ice cream and chocolate are the bargaining chips supreme, as powerful as money and military force are amongst adults.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“believe in reforming things that need to be reformed. I believe in social goods. I believe that the most stable and probably the most reasonable position on anything is probably to be found in the centre. I believe in compromise and sharing and making sure that everybody has a chance. I believe that we should listen to one another and accept that those with whom we may disagree have their own view of the good and should be respected. I believe in not insulting those from whom we differ.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“He had gone through life tiptoeing round Irene’s sensitivities, apologising for being who he was, and now it was over. There would be no more apologies. He was free.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“And so he thinks he’s entitled–or almost entitled–to call himself the Duke of Johannesburg,” James continued. “Secretly, though, he’s worried that the Lord Lyon and his people will catch him. He saw the Lord Lyon the other day in the supermarket in Morningside and he almost fainted. I was with him at the time. It was in the frozen products section and he had to stick his head into one of those big refrigerated displays so as not to be recognised.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“The expression, a bit of drama, was used by Domenica to describe anything from Chernobyl to running out of Earl Grey tea, and so Angus was not alarmed by this portentous opening.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“Cyril’s self-restraint was frequently tested almost to breaking point as he contemplated the ankles that he might so easily and deliciously nip. He did not bite; lesser dogs did that; dogs brought up in ill-disciplined homes; dogs with comptrollers who did not care what their dogs should do, or who excused it on the grounds that dogs will be dogs. Such dogs might bite, rather than nip, and were responsible for much bad feeling in the functioning of the otherwise seamless social contract between dogs and man.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“(Edinburgh dogs do not have owners–too prosaic a term–they have comptrollers.)”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“Cyril knew that certain rewards had to be earned–that dog biscuits, enticing in their musty meatiness, the canine equivalent of Belgian chocolate truffles, were only obtained after you had done something: fetched a stick or a ball, pointlessly thrown, in the way in which humans, for unfathomable reasons, threw sticks and balls for dogs to retrieve; extended a paw for an unhygienic handshake (the namaste gesture was so difficult if you were a quadruped); or otherwise performed in a way that met with favour from your comptroller. (Edinburgh dogs do not have owners–too prosaic a term–they have comptrollers.)”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“This was considered to be all the more of an achievement, given the public campaign that had been waged for some time against the Scotch pie in general. This had been triggered by research revealing the total weight of Scotch pies consumed by the average adult Scot each year: fifty-six pounds. That, together with the figures for the volume of Irn-Bru drunk by that same average Scottish adult (sixteen gallons), had led to calls for health warnings to be attached to each Scotch pie. These moves had become bogged down in disagreements over the wording of the warning: there had been strong support for These pies will kill you sooner than you think, but the alarmist tone of that message had put some people off. This pie will damage your health was thought to be too similar to existing warnings for tobacco and alcohol, while Dinnae put this stuff in your gob, was thought to be too self-consciously demotic and perhaps a touch vulgar. The debate had been long and acrimonious, and as a result the initiative fizzled out. The Scotch pie continued to be sold to its consumers in rising numbers.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“He looked at the portrait hung on the wall behind him. It was one of the gallery’s most popular pictures, Guy Kinder’s brooding portrait of the crime writer, Ian Rankin, sitting in the Oxford Bar, the haunt of his fictional Edinburgh detective. Ian Rankin was looking directly at Stuart, making Stuart avert his gaze.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“Nobody talks about respectable people any longer,” said Angus. “Perhaps that’s because it has become unfashionable to be respectable.” “Respectable people disapprove of things,” mused Domenica. “And Edinburgh used to be very disapproving. Now it’s only moderately so.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“Her scholarly time was now largely spent on freelance editing for a number of anthropological journals, occasional lectures, and work on a project that she had long nurtured–a study of the networks and customs of Watsonians, the graduates of George Watson’s College who played an important part in Edinburgh life and whose influence extended into the furthest reaches of the capital city. This research was different from that which she conducted on the Crocodile People of New Guinea, but it had risks of its own. It was also a project that would require far more time to be completed–Domenica was thinking of years, rather than months–as access was an issue and the layers of association and meaning in Watsonian affairs required a great deal of semiotic analysis.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“I have warned you. Glasgow is full of Campbells.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“Drawing is to art as grammar is to language: you can speak without any knowledge of grammar, but do not expect to be understood, and certainly do not expect to become a poet.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“James sniffed at the soup. “I love porcini to bits,” he said. “They’re the only mushroom I’d go out of my way for.” “What about chanterelles?” said Matthew. “Porcini are delicious, but so are chanterelles.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“Mothers need to be ambitious for their children otherwise. . .well, nobody would ever learn the piano.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“doesn’t sound like conservatism to me. It sounds more like moderation, perhaps, which is not the same thing, and which is, I suspect, what the vast majority of people want.” He paused. “And yet that’s not what the world is like at the moment, is it? There’s all this chest-beating. On all sides. Bluster. Dislike. Scorn. Blaming others for everything. Posturing.” “Yes, yes,” said Matthew, ruefully. “I sometimes wonder why we can’t be nice”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles

“Not to my knowledge,” Domenica replied. “Academics like to study everybody else. They don’t like to look too closely in the mirror.” Even as she said this, it occurred to her that it would be a rather enjoyable project – with fieldwork possibilities in agreeable places like Heidelberg and Göttingen. Perhaps, after she had completed her long-awaited study of Watsonians – if she ever got round to starting that – she would move on to an anthropological study of the German professorial class. She heard the mood music: Carmina Burana, of course, the Gaudeamus, naturally, and Brahms’s Academic Overture.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, A Promise of Ankles