From Friends, Lovers, Chocolate by Alexander McCall Smith:

A good work, once drawn attention to by its author inevitably becomes an exercise in self-congratulation.

It always surprised her that her niece seemed uninterested in what people did. For Isabel, it was fundamentally important information if one were even to begin to understand somebody.

A Scotswoman would expect equality and consideration in marriage unlike an Italian woman.

The sentiment sounded trite as most good sentiments did. It was hard to make goodness and good people sound interesting. Yet the good are worthy of note, because they battled and that battle was a great story.

The Germans deserved great credit for their moral seriousness, which is why Isabel liked them so much. Anyone was capable of doing what they did in their historical moment of madness - and their goodness lay in the fact that they later faced up to what they had done.

Everybody's job is like that, I wash things and then they become dirty again. Even the Queen's job is like that. The Queen signs one law and then they pass another. She opens one bridge and then they build another.

What is patriotism but the love of the good things that one saw and ate in childhood?