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.

Every small wrong, every minor act of cruelty, every act of petty bullying was symbolic of a greater wrong. And if we ignored these small things, then did it not blunt our outrage over the larger wrongs?

Simple questions--and simple answers--were what we needed in life. That was what Mma Ramotswe believed. Yes.

But you cannot expect every writer to dwell on human suffering. I think my books do deal with grave issues. People who say they are too positive probably havent read them.

I'm very interested in tea. I wouldn't mind being involved in some aspect of the tea industry.

Antonia was very conscious of the corrosive power of envy and felt that it was this emotion, more than any other, which lay behind human unhappiness. People did not realize how widespread envy was.

And that, in a way, was the burden of being a philosopher: one knew what one had to do, but it was so often the opposite of what one really wanted to do.