Alexander McCall Smith

I've also long since realized that the way to really engage children is to give out prizes; it's amazing how it concentrates their minds.

I have three older sisters, so we were a reasonably large family and, in general, a happy one.

You do not have to ladle on the impasto to make a point about human frailty or ambitions.

Fiction is able to encompass books that are bleak and which dwell on the manifold and terrible problems of our times. But I don't think that all books need to have that particular focus.

Writers obviously have to bear witness to the harsh face of the age.

It's through the small things that we develop our moral imagination, so that we can understand the sufferings of others.

With '44 Scotland Street' I found myself having to work out how a daily novel works, and it is completely different to a conventional novel.

One of the most destructive things that's happening in modern society is that we are losing our sense of the bonds that bind people together - which can lead to nightmares of social collapse.