Welcome to my commonplace blog

The goal of this blog is to preserve a few ideas and quotes from books I read. In the old days when books were not so readily available, people kept "commonplace books" where they copied choice passages they wanted to be able to remember and perhaps reuse. The idea got picked up by V.F.D. and it's common knowledge that most of that organization's volunteers have kept commonplace books, and so have Laura and I.

I'm sure there are many other Internet sites and blogs dedicated to the same idea. But this one is mine. Feel free to look around and leave comments, but not spam.

04 September 2012

The Kalahari Typing School for Men: A No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Novel (4) (The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency) (Alexander McCall Smith)

I love this series.


Quotes:

Sins, thought Mma Ramotswe, are darker and more powerful when contemplated within confining walls. Out in the open, under such a sky as this, misdeeds were reduced to their natural proportions—small, mean things that could be faced quite openly, sorted, and folded away.

He felt weary. Life was a battle against wear; the wear of machinery and the wear of the soul. Oil. Grease. Wear.

He closed the door behind him, taking one last look at the pump. It was an old friend, in a way. No modern pump would look like that, with its wheel and its beautiful heavy casing; no modern pump would make a noise like the trumpeting of an elephant. This pump had come from far away and could be given back to the British now. Here is your pump, which you left in Africa. It is finished now.

“You don’t have to read a book to understand how the world works,” Mma Potokwani continued. “You just have to keep your eyes open.”

No, this was not a lie; it was an interpretation.

“That is somebody who comes to stay with us from time to time,” said Mrs. Moffat. “He writes books.”

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