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Great feuds often need very few words to resolve them. Disputes, even between nations, between peoples, can be set to rest with simple acts of contrit...more

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She would not allow herself to remember how Note had treated her, and many others too, she suspected. She had forgiven him, yes, but she still did not...more

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She did not think that those who were late, or the ancestors themselves, would wish punishment upon us, no matter what our transgressions. It was far ...more

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…one of those dreadful boarding schools. It was down on the South Coast. I think some very unpleasant things happened there…. So many lives were disto...more

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…did it make a difference if the remark never got back to the person about whom it was made? She thought not. The harm is done when the words are utte...more

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Human history seems to me to be one long story of people sweeping down—or up, I suppose—replacing other people in the process.

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It shall be an offence for any man, either a husband or other person of the male sex, married or otherwise, being over the age of twelve years, to thr...more

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She was proud of her build, which was in accordance with the old Botswana ideas of beauty, and she would not pander to the modern idea of slenderness....more

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I shall go and sit under a tree…. Which tree, Mma?... Oh, there are many trees in this life, she said. It does not matter which tree you choose, as lo...more

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There is a tidal wave of ignorance, Mma Ramotswe. It is a great tidal wave and it will drown all of us if we are not careful.

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It was a voice that you felt you had to listen to—or you ignored at your peril.

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Men, she thought, were odd about their clothes: they liked to wear the same things until they became defeated and threadbare.

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There was a great deal of progress being made, right under their noses, particularly in Africa, and this progress was good. Life was much harder for t...more

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...Perhaps part of the secret of leading a life in which you would not always be worrying about things, or complaining about them, was to accept that ...more

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What we have, we all must lose—that applied to everything, even to that which we thought we had the greatest right. We were tenants of this earth—noth...more