Wilbur Smith quotes - page 2

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)

Every time one of my books sells a million copies in paperback, Pan Macmillan gives me a gold statuette of Pan. I have about 20 of them.

Wilbur Smith

It's probably true that everyone has a book in them, although it may not be a very good one.

Wilbur Smith

I put my soul into every book I write.

Wilbur Smith

I know it's politically incorrect but I enjoy things like the kick boxing and cock fighting.

Wilbur Smith

There's nothing so aphrodisiacal for a woman as money and success.

Wilbur Smith

People don't really know themselves until they're 30. Like most people nowadays, I went to university, got a degree and wandered for a bit. I trained to be a chartered accountant, which I didn't much enjoy, and it was only slowly that the idea of becoming a creative writer gelled.

Wilbur Smith

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

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

Politicians all over the world cater to domestic vote banks. They will spend only on what their constituents want. So unless there is a grass root green movement in a nation the politicians will not be willing to spend money on curbing emissions. More awareness is needed amongst the people to effect the real change in how governments spend.

Wilbur Smith

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)

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

I want to be seen as a good storyteller. I'm a manipulator as well.

Wilbur Smith

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

I'm not a good father and they're not children any more; the eldest is in his fifties. My relationship with their mothers broke down and, because of what the law was, they went with their mothers and were imbued with their mothers' morality in life and they were not my people any more.

Wilbur Smith

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

Previous
1
2 (Current)
Next

Wilbur Smith

Wilbur Smith - Image

Photo: jimincairns, CC BY 2.0

Occupation: African Novelist
Born: January 9, 1933
Died: November 13, 2021
Quotes count: 41

Related authors

Clive Cussler 8

American Writer

Ken Follett 75

Welsh Author

James Patterson 390

American Author

Conn Iggulden 1

Author

Bernard Cornwell 195

British Novelist

John Grisham 55

American Writer

Nicholas Sparks 729

American Writer

Stephen King 810

American Author

Patricia Cornwell 36

American Writer

Roger Moore 53

English Actor