Now constipation was quite a different matter…It would be dreadful for the whole world to know about troubles of that nature. She felt terribly sorry for people who suffered from constipation, and she knew that...

The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, because if you left it to them to work out...

Just for Paris. You don’t have to be my friend forever – just for Paris.

Mma Ramotswe decided to go back into her office. There was a curious thing about male conversation that she had noticed – men often ended up poking fun at one another. Women did this only...

That is the problem with governments these days. They want to do things all the time; they are always very busy thinking of what things they can do next. That is not what people want....

Isabel is looking at several collections of research journals. ‘She would understand the issues if she chose to open one of the volumes, but she knew that there were conversations within which she would never...

Mma Ramotswe had listened to a World Service broadcast on her radio one day which had simply taken her breath away. It was about philosophers who called themselves existentialists and who, as far as Mma...

Our stomachs live in towns,” said Mma Potokwani, patting the front of her dress. ‘That is where the work is. Our stomachs know that. But our hearts are usually somewhere else.

Bertie stared at his mother. She spoils things, he thought. All she ever does is spoil things. He had not started this conversation, and it was not his fault that they were now talking about...

For a short while she considered the idea of orchestral courtesy. Certainly one should avoid giving political offence: German orchestras, of course, used to be careful about playing Wagner abroad, at least in some countries,...

We can’t have moral obligations to every single person in this world. We have moral obligations to those who we come up against, who enter into our moral space, so to speak. That means neighbors,...

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...

Matthew knew that phrenology was nonsense, and yet, years later, he found himself making judgments similar to those made by his father; slippery people looked slippery; they really did. And how we become like our...

We chose younger and younger politicians to lead us because they looked good on television and were sharp. But really we should be looking for wisdom, and choosing people who had acquired it; and such...

The previously unloved may find it hard to believe that they are now loved; that is such a miracle, they feel; such a miracle.

No plaque reminds the passer-by of these glories, although there should be one; for those who invent biscuits bring great pleasure to many.

Gracious acceptance is an art – an art which most never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder...

It was time for tea as it so often was.

We put on our walls what we think is beautiful or inspiring, and if others think that it is manufactured or shallow, then they need not have it on their walls.

Most morality, thought Mma Ramotswe, was about doing the right thing because it had been identified as such by a long process of acceptance and observance. You simply could not create your own morality because...

So it was perfectly possible that there were men who liked shopping, men who understood exactly what it was all about, but Mma Ramotwe had yet to meet such a man. Maybe they existed elsewhere...

The value of money is subjective, depending on age. At the age of one, one multiplies the actual sum by 145,000, making one pound seem like 145,000 pounds to a one-year-old. At seven – Bertie’s...

Remember the Hottentots?” asked James. “They’ve become the Khoi now, which means that the Germans will have to retire that wonderful word of theirs, Hottentotenpotentatenstantenattentater, which means, as you know, one who attacks the aunt...

How often have I noticed or, indeed, listened to him? We talk, but do I actually listen, or is our conversation mainly a question of my waiting for him to stop and for it to...

Go to any small village anywhere in the world, and see what they remember. Everything. It’s all there — passed on like a precious piece of information, some secret imparted from one who knew to...

Perhaps trust had to be accompanied by a measure of common sense, and a hefty dose of realism about human nature. But that would need a lot of thinking about, and the tea break did...

The trouble with Grace, she thought, is that she is so literal. But that was the trouble with most people, when it came down to it; there were very few who enjoyed flights of fantasy,...

Surely it is better, thought Domenica, that forty-five should buy the book and actually read it, than should many thousands, indeed millions, buy it and put it on their shelves, like…Professor Hawking’s Brief History of...

Morality is for everybody, and this means that the views of more than one person are needed to create it. That was what made the modern morality, with its emphasis on individuals and the working...

Irene gasped. “Have you taken leave of your senses, Stuart?” she hissed. “Have you?”Stuart closed his eyes.”No,” he said. “Au contraire.” It was strong language for the Edinburgh New Town, but he had to say...

…they are dazzled by all the money that they are being offered. That is what money does, Mma Ramotswe—you must have seen that. Sometime we need to look the other way when people put money...

It was a stark choice: shoes or food; beauty or sustenance; the sensible or the self-indulgent. “I’ll take the shoes,” she said firmly.

Mma Ramotswe sighed. ‘We are all tempted, Mma. We are all tempted when it comes to cake.’That is true,’ said Mma Potokwane sadly. ‘There are many temptations in this life, but cake is probably one...

It is sometimes easier to be happy if you don’t know everything.

International business, once allowed to stalk uncontrolled, killed the local, the small, the quirky.

And then the second thing you have to do is go and see your son. That is a duty of love, Andrew. It’s as simple as that. A duty of love. Do you understand what...

We act out our lives to a soundtrack, thought Isabel, the music that becomes, for a spell, out favourite and is listened to again and again until it stands for the time itself. But that...

There was no point in telling somebody not to cry, she had always thought; indeed there were times when you should do exactly the opposite, when you should urge people to cry, to start the...

And if there’s bad behaviour,” Mma Potokwane went on. “If there’s bad behaviour, the quickest way of stopping it is to give more love. That always works, you know. People say we must punish when...

But he’ll never be fully recognised, because Scots literature these days is all about complaining and moaning and being injured in one’s soul.

She hoped that her baby was happy and would be waiting for her when she herself left Botswana and went to heaven. Would Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni get round to naming a wedding date before then?...

Do you realise that people die of boredom in London suburbs? It’s the second biggest cause of death amongs the English in general. Sheer boredom…

…this woman, moved by some private sorrow as much as the words being spoken, cried almost silently, unobserved by others, apart from Mma Ramotswe, who stretched out her hand and laid it on her shoulder....

Antonia was very conscious of the corrosive power of envy and felt that it was this emotion, more than any other, which lay behind human unhappiness. People did not realise how widespread envy was.

We shall change all that…because it is possible to change the world, if one is determined enough, and if one sees with sufficient clarity just what has to be changed.

It was always a mistake, she thought, to dwell on the cause of one’s anger.

We don’t forget…Our heads may be small, but they are as full of memories as the sky may sometimes be full of swarming bees, thousands and thousands of memories, smells of places, of little things...

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 an earlier age, it might have been possible to believe that goodness would prevail over pride, but not anymore. The proud could be proud with impunity, because there was nobody to contradict him in...

That, incidentally, gives me the greatest possible pleasure—the knowledge that we are all linked by our friendship with a group of fictional people. What a pleasant club of which to be a member! [from the...