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“Still, I’m surprised by how many women sign up for motherhood considering how difficult pregnancy can be—morning sickness, stretch marks, death. Again, you’re fine,” he added quickly, taking in her horrified face. “It’s just that we tend to treat pregnancy as the most common condition in the world—as ordinary as stubbing a toe—when the truth is, it’s like getting hit by a truck.”
― Lessons in Chemistry
― Lessons in Chemistry
“Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst.”
― The Allegory of the Cave
― The Allegory of the Cave
“Really it was her mother she’d wanted to call right after the bad news, or in the middle of it, while Mr. Petrofaccio was blowing his nose. First thing in the morning, last thing at night, whenever a fight with Tig left her in pieces, it had been her mother who put Willa back together. When someone mattered like that, you didn’t lose her at death. You lost her as you kept living.”
― Unsheltered
― Unsheltered
“There is a great difference between those phenomena which are accepted on faith, and those which are proved by objective determination, though the cause of both may be equally ‘rational’ once known. And the chief difference is this: that people will treat with disdain such phenomena as are proved by the evidence of the senses, and commonly experienced—while they will defend to the death the reality of a phenomenon which they have neither seen nor experienced. “Faith is as powerful a force as science,” he concluded, voice soft in the darkness, “—but far more dangerous.”
― Voyager
― Voyager
“I think it lets us off the hook. I think it teaches us that nothing is really our fault; that something or someone else is pulling the strings; that ultimately, we’re not to blame for the way things are; that to improve things, we should pray. But the truth is, we are very much responsible for the badness in the world. And we have the power to fix it.”
― Lessons in Chemistry
― Lessons in Chemistry
Q&A with Alexander McCall Smith
— 475 members
— last activity May 05, 2015 07:39PM
THIS Q&A HAS CONCLUDEDBest-selling author Alexander McCall Smith joined Goodreads fans for a Q&A and group chat May 10-17, 2010. The official Q&A is n ...more
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