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 there is wrongdoing, but if you punish you're only punishing yourself. And what's the point of that?

Alexander McCall Smith, The Good Husband of Zebra Drive

When you are with somebody you love the smallest, smallest things can be so important, so amusing because love transforms the world, everything. And was that what had happened?

Alexander McCall Smith, The Right Attitude to Rain

There was a teapot, in which Mma Ramotswe—the only lady private detective in Botwana—brewed tea. And three mugs—one for herself, one for her secretary, and one for the client. What else does a detective agency really need?

Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

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

Alexander McCall Smith, The Kalahari Typing School for Men

... because love can come, if you believe in it and behave as if it exists. That was the case, too, with free will; with perhaps, faith of any sort; and love was a sort of faith, was it not?

Alexander McCall Smith, The Right Attitude to Rain

So the small things came into their own: small acts of helping others, if one could; small ways of making one's own life better: acts of love, acts of tea, acts of laughter. Clever people might laugh at such simplicity, but, she asked herself, what was their own solution?

Alexander McCall Smith, The Good Husband of Zebra Drive

She had not made a lot of money, but she had not made a loss, and she had been happy and entertained. That counted for infinitely more than a vigorously healthy balance sheet. In fact, she thought, annual accounts should include an item specifically headed Happiness, alongside expenses and receipts and the like

Alexander McCall Smith, Tears of the Giraffe

We should be careful of the insults we fling at others, lest they return and land at our feet, newly minted to apply to those who had first coined them

Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

She had so much love to give—she had always felt that - and now there was somebody to whom she could give this love, and that, she knew, was good; for that is what redeems us, that is what makes our pain and sorrow bearable—this giving of love to others, this sharing of the heart

Alexander McCall Smith, In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

There is plenty of work for love to do

Alexander McCall Smith, Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

If your ceiling should fall down, then you have lost a room, but gained a courtyard. Think of it that way

Alexander McCall Smith, The Right Attitude to Rain

A life without stories would be no life at all

Alexander McCall Smith, In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

Be content with who you are and where you are, and do whatever you can do to bring to others such contentment, and joy, and understanding that you have managed to find yourself

Alexander McCall Smith, The Double Comfort Safari Club

Do not act meanly, do not be unkind, because the time for setting things right may pass before your heart changes course

Alexander McCall Smith, The Careful Use of Compliments

The telling of a story, like virtually everything in this life, was always made all the easier by a cup of tea

Alexander McCall Smith, The Miracle at Speedy Motors

That of all people, it should be him; that took her aback. That the heart should settle on somebody like him; that surprised her. But she was so certain about it, so certain

Alexander McCall Smith, Dream Angus: The Celtic God of Dreams

You can go through life and make new friends every year—every month practically—but there was never any substitute for those friendships of childhood that survive into adult years. Those are the ones in which we are bound to one another with hoops of steel

Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency