Top 100 Wilbur Smith Quotes
#1. I still get enormous pleasure and a sense of fulfillment out of writing a book that I'm proud of. I see myself as a bit like a jewel-maker who can sit back and admire his work.
Wilbur Smith
#2. You don't turn out as many books as I did then by sitting around, being cozy with the family.
Wilbur Smith
#3. He mad no moral judgements. He accepted mankind as he found it, and looked for the profit to be made from its strengths or weaknesses.
Wilbur Smith
#5. I work on my novels wherever I have a PC, and I have four or five places around the world where I do have a PC. These days you can just slip a little flash drive into your top pocket, fly for 12 hours, come to another place, plug it into a computer and you are away again.
Wilbur Smith
#6. I love the sea as much as I love the veldt of Africa.
Wilbur Smith
#7. To me, my characters are more real than most people I meet.
Wilbur Smith
#8. There's nothing so aphrodisiacal for a woman as money and success.
Wilbur Smith
#9. Despite the fact that I spend a lot of time in London, Switzerland and New York, Africa is the place I know and love best, and my heart will always lie here.
Wilbur Smith
#10. Many people have compared me to the Victorian adventure writer, Rider Haggard. I accept that as a compliment. As a boy growing up in Central Africa I read all Haggard's African novels.
Wilbur Smith
#11. As regards to personal safety, you do have to be careful not to put yourself at risk when travelling in South Africa. You don't want to go out exploring at night, for example.
Wilbur Smith
#12. The first story I ever sold was to 'Argosy' magazine, which no longer exists. That issue also contained work by several other more celebrated writers, like Ray Bradbury - so I felt I had at least one toe on the ladder.
Wilbur Smith
#13. What I like about writing is the sense of godlike power it gives you.
Wilbur Smith
#14. Usually halfway through a book I have a serious depression, so I go on safari on my ranch in South Africa, or fishing off my island in the Seychelles. When I come back and re-read it, I think: 'What was all that about, Smith? It's fine, just get on with it.'
Wilbur Smith
#15. There was always a pass through the reef where the sweet water inhibited the growth of the coral. As
Wilbur Smith
#16. When I vacate this sack of old bones I won't care what you do with it. Bury or burn it but don't make much fuss.
Wilbur Smith
#17. But those set to guard a treasure, are too often those who loot it.
Wilbur Smith
#18. I read a lot of biographies and books with an African background.
Wilbur Smith
#19. I write my books in my head, and not in a specific study with a view. The view is from my inner eyes.
Wilbur Smith
#20. The mistake the apartheid government made was they gave the black people nothing, so they had nothing to lose. But now a lot of the former freedom-fighters are big-time capitalists. They've been given directorships in every major company. They're billionaires!
Wilbur Smith
#22. As they slithered up the muddy bank, scores of tiny silver fish that had been feasting on the open wounds were slow to relinquish their hold and were drawn out with the carcasses. Stranded upon the mud-banks, they flopped and quivered like stars that had fallen to earth.
Wilbur Smith
#24. For the past few years my fans have made it very clear that they would like to read my novels and revisit my family of characters faster than I can write them. For them, I am willing to make a change to my working methods so the stories in my head can reach the page more frequently.
Wilbur Smith
#25. Authors can only soft sell the environment. Create a wonderful story around the environment involving the characters that leaves a lasting impression on the reader's mind.
Wilbur Smith
#26. Every one of them was armed, every one a trained soldier who had killed and would not hesitate to kill again.
Wilbur Smith
#27. A cynic had defined aid as simply the system by which poor white people in rich countries gave money to rich black people in poor countries to put into Swiss bank accounts.
Wilbur Smith
#28. Sometimes it is best for men not to attempt to interfere with destiny. Our prayers can be answered in ways which we do not expect and do not welcome.
Wilbur Smith
#29. The first novel I wrote was a monster - clocking in at 180,000 words - but it died a death, a death it deserved. It was called 'The Gods First Make Mad.' It was a good title, but it was the only good thing about the book. I didn't let that put me off.
Wilbur Smith
#30. It's probably true that everyone has a book in them, although it may not be a very good one.
Wilbur Smith
#31. I go on a hunting safari at least once a year to Botswana, which is fantastic because we have a huge area of wilderness entirely to ourselves. My island covers roughly 55 acres, which again I have to myself, with nearly half a kilometre of private beach with my own jetties and boats.
Wilbur Smith
#32. Let it simply be said that we know more about the details of the hours immediately before and the actual death of Jesus, in and near Jerusalem, than we know about the death of any other one man in all the ancient world.
Wilbur Smith
#33. We are all mere insects caught in the web that the gods spin for us.
Wilbur Smith
#34. Your ambition has cost you dear, sir, Hal said, trying to keep a rein on his fury. In victory a true warrior must show forbearance, his father had once said. He must not give in to the base instinct for revenge.
Wilbur Smith
#35. Herbert, my father, was born in Britain but went out to Africa in his teens to join his father and built up an 18,000-acre ranch in what was then Northern Rhodesia, providing work for the locals. He was my hero when I was a boy.
Wilbur Smith
#36. At the age of 12 I won the school prize for Best English Essay. The prize was a copy of Somerset Maugham's 'Introduction To Modern English And American Literature.' To this day I keep it on the shelf between my collection of Forester's works and the little urn that contains my mother's ashes.
Wilbur Smith
#37. I've been associated with Macmillan for over 45 years. I'd like to thank them for their continued commitment to my backlist and I look forward to continuing to work with them as they publish my next novel, 'Vicious Circle' in 2013.
Wilbur Smith
#38. Silence as they crept in towards the island. Hal navigated by the compass,
Wilbur Smith
#39. I never set out to write literature; I set out to tell stories. And some of my work may be very raunchy and very bloodthirsty - but life, for me, is a violent thing.
Wilbur Smith
#40. I don't know how many lions and leopards I've shot. I've shot two elephants, which was enough - never again. It's a melancholy and moving thing to hunt an elephant. It's like shooting an old man.
Wilbur Smith
#43. The man who drinks Zambezi waters must always return to drink again.
Wilbur Smith
#44. Patriotism is a myth conceived by those old rogues to draw us into the infernal game. Let them fight as they will, but we want no part of it.
Wilbur Smith
#45. The tranquilizers he had been given had worn off, leaving him with a drug hangover and a bitter grudge against the entire world.
Wilbur Smith
#46. to, for every man present appreciated precisely where that challenge was aimed. 'We all know how this works. No prey, no pay. Well we ain't going to get our hands on no prize stuck here like
Wilbur Smith
#48. The really disturbing thing about Somalia is that in a country where there are few economic opportunities, pirates are perceived as glamorous and are held in awe by young boys who aspire to their lifestyle.
Wilbur Smith
#49. There are people out there with an eye on my hard-earned cash who think that I am a pushover. I am not!
Wilbur Smith
#51. I grew up in Rhodesia on my father's ranch and every year he used to take us on safari in some remote area of the wilderness.
Wilbur Smith
#52. My absolute favorite pieces are 'Rhapsody in Blue' and 'Begin the Beguine.' I play these when I am working.
Wilbur Smith
#53. I have done everything I have ever wanted to do. I have swum with tiger sharks, been charged by lions and elephants. I have been shot three times, chased by crocodiles and, God be praised, I've made enough money that I can continue to do all the things I want to for as long as I am able.
Wilbur Smith
#54. They have been taught nothing but destruction and learned nothing except that a man's desires can be achieved simply by killing anybody who stands in his way.
Wilbur Smith
#55. Mr. Tyler, drop the anchor. We are as close
Wilbur Smith
#56. I'm not a prophet; I can only use historical reality to come to a view of the future, and my view is that Africa will return to being African and not European. The advent of colonialism was foreign to the country itself, but it will return to what it was before the Europeans arrived.
Wilbur Smith
#57. I'm a feminist. The women in my books in recent years have been powerful characters and I love to see a woman with a cute bottom walking past.
Wilbur Smith
#58. Should five slaves dictate to a king? If five baboons bark, must the black-maned lion tremble?
Wilbur Smith
#59. Rage makes a man sick, my son. It spoils his appetite for life and keeps him from sleep at night. We cannot change our world, so we must look for the good things in life and enjoy those to the full.
Wilbur Smith
#60. No profit was too small to despise; no loss was too small to abhor.
Wilbur Smith
#61. This first print run of the first edition of my first novel, 'When The Lion Feeds.' back in 1964, is so rare it can fetch several thousand pounds at auction. I always wanted to be an author, and I decided to write about what I knew.
Wilbur Smith
#62. She is the epitome of injustice, is my mistress. I never sulk, I am no glutton, and at that time I was barely thirty years of age, although to a fourteen-year-old anyone above twenty is an ancient, and I admit that, when it comes to food, I do have the refined tastes of a connoisseur.
Wilbur Smith
#64. I believe that a healthy body breeds a healthy mind. I am 74 years old now and my wife, Niso, is 38 years younger than me. She absolutely insists that I take regular exercise with her.
Wilbur Smith
#65. I don't want children. Why should I let some strange little monster into my life to destroy what to me is a perfect set-up?
Wilbur Smith
#66. My father was my god. His approval was so valuable to me.
Wilbur Smith
#67. I think money is essential to happiness and right now I wouldn't want to be anyone other than Wilbur Smith - I've had a fantastic life, rewarded far more heavily than I deserve. Maybe I'd like to be J. K. Rowling, but I'll settle for second best.
Wilbur Smith
#68. The best cure for racism is to have somebody shoot at you. Man, it does not matter then what color the arse is that comes to save yours-black or white, you're ready to give it a big fat kiss.
Wilbur Smith
#70. I hate politics. I like to write about it, but to get involved in it, to try and make a lot of ignorant people do what you want them to do, waste of time. Go and write a book. It's more important and it'll last longer.
Wilbur Smith
#72. They say I'm worth either €200 million, €100 million, €50 million or €10 million, but that's something between God, the HMRC and myself.
Wilbur Smith
#73. The whole structure of African government, as far back as we know, was based on tyranny. One guy ran the show. Chiefs like Chaka and Mzilikazi committed terrible atrocities. That is the tradition from which modern African rulers spring. It won't change easily overnight.
Wilbur Smith
#74. I've eaten lion, leopard, crocodile, python. I don't recommend lion. It tastes exactly like when a tomcat comes into your house and sprays. Snake and crocodile are great - a cross between lobster and chicken.
Wilbur Smith
#75. They say if you drink Zambezi water with your mother's milk, you are always a slave of Africa, and I am.
Wilbur Smith
#76. All my characters have got a big slice of me in them. A big piece of me, because it's my dialogue and this is the way I think and talk.
Wilbur Smith
#77. My mama loved books; I became fascinated by the wonderful stories that came out of these things she held in her hand - and started to make them up myself.
Wilbur Smith
#78. I used to own an island in the Seychelles and had a big boat there and one day I came across some Somali pirates who were passing by on their way to re-provision their boat. They didn't even acknowledge me - which is unheard of among sailors - and it was like looking into the eyes of a black mamba.
Wilbur Smith
#79. I want to be seen as a good storyteller. I'm a manipulator as well.
Wilbur Smith
#80. I live in Cape Town but my favourite holiday destination is Hermanus, a little seaside town about a 90-minute drive away, over the pass and down to the sea, on the sunshine coast. It's where I love to escape to with my wife for a weekend every now and again.
Wilbur Smith
#81. It's a strange paradox that a man gifted with too many talents can fritter them all away without developing a single one to its full.
Wilbur Smith
#82. we arrived at the army's main encampment all
Wilbur Smith
#83. I have never had too much trouble for creative ideas to spring up in my mind.
Wilbur Smith
#84. I believe that there are dark and difficult days ahead, and you won't be playing for an increase in company dividens - you will be playing for the survival of a nation, and if you fail, it will mean the end of the world you know. You will not suffer alone -
Wilbur Smith
#85. Beware of your most implacable enemy-yourself.
Wilbur Smith
#87. My family wasn't terribly affluent and looked upon money very carefully as something that had to be saved, not spent. My father built the ducting that took air into the copper mines and made about 6 d a yard in the Thirties, which was good money back then.
Wilbur Smith
#88. I shot my first lion at the age of 14 when a pride threatened my father's livestock while he was away on holiday.
Wilbur Smith
#89. but death is the ultimate purpose of life.
Wilbur Smith
#90. History is a river that never ends. Today is history, and I am here at the fountainhead.
Wilbur Smith
#91. Write for yourself, not for a perceived audience. If you do, you'll mostly fall flat on your face, because it's impossible to judge what people want. And you have to read. That's how you learn what is good writing and what is bad. Then the main thing is application. It's hard work.
Wilbur Smith
#92. The fact that I had been on the point of making a similar heroic gesture was quite ignored, and this only increased my irritation.
Wilbur Smith
#94. We have worked all day to tidy the mess you have made.
Wilbur Smith
#95. I read all of Rider Haggard's books. For me he had the romance of Africa with a little bit of mysticism. I'm delighted to be looked on as his heir and be categorised as an adventure novelist because that's exactly what I am.
Wilbur Smith
#96. When it comes to fashion, even the most sensible woman is not to be trusted.
Wilbur Smith
#97. You know that feeling when you finish a final exam and you think, 'I never want to do that again'? Well I have the same feeling when I finish a novel. Each time I say, 'I think I may retire now' and then after six months the ideas start to churn again. I could never stop.
Wilbur Smith
#98. Happiness cannot last, he thought. It is too intense.
Wilbur Smith
#99. If I have to die, then it's best to do so before I see everything I love, the land, the animals, the people, all of it destroyed.
Wilbur Smith
#100. You're too old for this type of living,' he told
Wilbur Smith
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