Wilbur Smith Quotes

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Retire, Novel

• 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

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  Tags in Flat, Perceived

• 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

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  Tags in Halfway, Fishing

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Edition, Novel

• 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

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  Tags in Worth, They Say

• There is no quick way of making money. People come to you with tips for the races or offer the latest Ponzi scheme, but I can see them coming a mile off. I just go with the adage that if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

  Wilbur Smith

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  Tags in Making, Races

• 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

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  Tags in Tyranny, Overnight

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Glamorous, Aspire

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Apartheid, Gave

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Contained, Celebrated

• 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

  Topics in Death

  Tags in Deserved, Novel

• Quite frankly, I think political correctness is the worst form of censorship. You’re not allowed to speak your mind unless you’re black, or unless you’re a terrorist, or unless you’re an Arab or a minority people. Then you can say what you like. But if you are like a lot of us you are not supposed to say certain things.

  Wilbur Smith

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  Tags in Censorship, Minority

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Grass, Politicians

• 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

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  Tags in Trained, Chartered

• 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

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  Tags in Carefully, Affluent

• 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

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  Tags in Fascinated, Stories

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Crocodile, Eaten

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Vicious, Novel

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Historical, Colonialism

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Law, Morality

Wilbur Smith (70)

Birth:	9th January, 1933
Nationality:	South African
Profession:	Novelist

About

Smith was born in Broken Hill, Northern Rhodesia, now Kabwe, Zambia. His father was a metal worker who opened a sheet metal factory and then bought a cattle ranch. "My father was a tough man," said Smith. "He was used to working with his hands and had massively developed arms from cutting metal. He was a boxer, a hunter, very much a man's man. I don't think he ever read a book in his life, including mine.

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