Alisha

“It was the beauty of the country before them that had done it. Scotland was a place of attenuated light, of fragility, of a beauty that broke the heart.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Love in the Time of Bertie

“If I have been more backward in seeking her society, it is because I do not like her, and my acquaintance amongst those whom I do like is sufficiently extensive.”
― Sarah Harriet Burney, Traits of Nature

“Angus turned to Domenica. "This view always makes me feel sad. I don't know why, but it does." He drew in his breath, savouring the freshness of the air. Freshly mown grass was upon it, and the smell of lavender, too, from Elspeth's kitchen garden. "Well, perhaps not sad--more wistful, perhaps, which is one notch below actual sadness.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, Love in the Time of Bertie

“He loved Elspeth so much, and he hoped that she knew it. Yet it occurred to him that she might not be sure of that because he had not told her – or at least he had not told her recently. Wives and husbands, it seemed to him, did not say that sort of thing: it was all left unsaid – assumed, perhaps, but not spelled out. That was the problem with life in general – we slipped into a rut in which we failed to state what we meant by the things we did. Our lives, Matthew thought, can become like silent films without the subtitles.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, The Enigma of Garlic