Wilbur Smith > Quotes

“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, Golden Fox

“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, Rage

“A man follows the path laid out for him. He does his duty to God and his King. He does what he must do, not what pleases him. God's truth, boy, what kind of world would this be if every man did what pleased him alone? Who would plough the fields and reap the harvest, if every man had the right to say, 'I don't want to do that.' In this world there is a place for every man, but every man must know his place.”
― Wilbur Smith, Monsoon

“beware of your most implacable enemy-yourself.”
― Wilbur Smith, The Leopard Hunts in Darkness

“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 A. Smith, Elephant Song

“History is a river that never ends. Today is history, and I am here at the fountainhead.”
― Wilbur Smith, Rage

“They do say that socialism is the ideal philosophy-just as long as you have capitalists to pay for it.”
― Wilbur Smith, The Leopard Hunts in Darkness

“I was sitting in the Temple of Karnak on the Nile, as the sun was going down, and I was all alone, and the great Hypostyle Hall was full of shadows and ghosts of the past, and suddenly I heard this little voice saying "my name is Taita, write my story"… and if you believe that you'll believe anything.”
― Wilbur A. Smith, River God

“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

“Yet such is the perversity of human nature that I hungered for what I could never have and dreamed of the impossible.”
― Wilbur Smith, River God

“No profit was too small to despise; no loss was too small to abhor.”
― Wilbur A. Smith, Elephant Song

“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, Rage

“War is the game played by old men with the lives of the young”
― Wilbur Smith, River God

“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

“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 A. Smith, Elephant Song

“Should five slaves dictate to a king? If five baboons bark, must the black-maned lion tremble?”
― Wilbur Smith

“Play the game without mercy, play to win”
― Wilbur Smith, When the Lion Feeds

“Fly for me, Bird of the Sun.”
― Wilbur Smith, The Sunbird

“when it comes to fashion, even the most sensible woman is not to be trusted.”
― Wilbur Smith, River God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt

“We are all mere insects caught in the web that the gods spin for us.”
― Wilbur Smith, Desert God

“The branch breaks that will not bend with the wind. You must learn to bend".”
― Wilbur Smith, The Triumph of the Sun

“„Ако сълзите могат да изплатят нашите грехове, бих плакал, за да купя опрощение за всички твои мъки в бъдещия ти живот, ако можех сега да изплача всичко вместо теб, бих плакал, докато изтекат очите ми.”
― Wilbur Smith, When the Lion Feeds

“When a traveller gets a thorn in his foot,’ Mbejane went on softly, ‘and he is wise he plucks it out – and he is a fool who leaves it and says “I will keep this thorn to prick me so that I will always remember the road upon which I have travelled.” Nkosi, it is better to remember with pleasure than with pain.”
― Wilbur Smith, When the Lion Feeds

“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

“Something always dies when the lion feeds – and yet there is meat for those that follow him.”
― Wilbur Smith, When the Lion Feeds

“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, Rage

“Robin Hood was also a terrorist ― but he had some style and a little class.”
― Wilbur Smith, The Leopard Hunts in Darkness

“But those set to guard a treasure, are too often those who loot it.”
― Wilbur Smith, The Leopard Hunts in Darkness

“I learned that what men believe about the gods is mostly their own wishful imaginings. The idea that a man can bend the immortals to his will with prayer and sacrifice or pious confession is ludicrous. The immortals do only what suits them best, and that is care for their own power and pleasure.”
― Wilbur Smith, Desert God

“Out of the chaos and darkness of Nun rose Ammon-Ra, He-Who-Creates-Himself. I watched Ammon-Ra stroke his generative member, masturbating and spurting out his seminal seed in mighty waves that left the silver smear that we know as the Milky Way across the dark void. From this seed were generated Geb and Nut, the earth and the heaven.”
― Wilbur Smith, River God: An Ancient Egypt Novel 1