Alexander McCall Smith Quotes

The lessons of experience are always learned too late.

I think I don't regret a single 'excess' of my responsive youth - I only regret, in my chilled age, certain occasions and possibilities I didn't embrace.

I look back upon my times when more people were listening to what I had to say, and I didn't say enough.

Nobody will use other people's experience, nor have any of his own till it is too late to use it.

By the time a man is wise enough to watch his step, he's too old to go anywhere.

I've learned so much from all my mistakes. I just wish I had gotten my education.

Five years from now I'm probably going to look back on the things I'm doing and cringe.

I'm a grown man. You know, I've been in a lot of scrapes, but I never felt like I got so - there are probably a lot of things I should have done that I didn't do.

For the first half of your life, people tell you what you should do; for the second half, they tell you what you should have done.

Knowing what I know now and what I have been through, would I do it the same? I look at the alternative - a very simple life. It would have been nice to have a simple life.

If I had to do it over, I wouldn't change a thing.

To me, it's always interesting to see what people end up regretting, as a way maybe to avoid such regrets in your own life.

I think sometimes in life we rush and only later look back and say, 'Wow, that was something pretty cool that I did,' and we realize we should have been more aware while it was happening.

I had years of partying, and I was kind of surprised and happy I survived it all. Now, being a parent, I look back on it thinking, Oh God, the things you did!

I've had quite a life, when you stop and think about it.

And maybe I'm a little smarter now than I was before for all the stupid things I've done.

I never had the chance to consider what or how I wanted to be.

I'm sure once my career's over, when I look back when I'm older, I can maybe appreciate it a little bit more.

There are many things that, if I have to relive, maybe I will do it another way. But I would not like to look back and think what I have not been able to.

I have many regrets, and I'm sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret... if you have any sense, and if you don't regret them, maybe you're stupid.

Ask an older person you respect to tell you his or her greatest regret.

I don't think I could give advice to my younger self because she probably wouldn't listen.

I have many regrets and things I wish I could go back and change, but I have also worked hard and tried to improve myself.

Like everybody, I've stayed up at night regretting things - Why did I do that, say that - but at the end of the day, I really do believe everything happens for a reason.

When you talk to people who are old, some wish they had enjoyed themselves more, but not many wish they had wasted more time.