Daughters could survive a powerful mother, but boys found it almost impossible. Such boys were often severely damaged and spent the rest of their lives running away from their mothers, or from anybody who remotely reminded them of their mothers; either that, or they became their mothers, in a desperate, misguided act of psychological self defence.
Alexander McCall SmithAnd how we become like our parents! How their scorned advice - based, we felt in our superiority, on prejudices and muddled folk wisdom - how their opinions are subsequently borne out by our own discoveries and sense of the world, one after one. And as this happens, we realise with increasing horror that proposition which we would never have entertained before: our mothers were right!
Alexander McCall SmithIf your ceiling should fall down, then you have lost a room, but gained a courtyard. Think of it that way.
Alexander McCall SmithThere are many women whose lives would be immeasurably improved by widowhood, but one should not always point that out.
Alexander McCall Smith