A. N. Wilson Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• If you imagine writing 1,000 words a day, which most journalists do, that would be a very long book a year.

  A. N. Wilson

  Book, Writing, Years

  "AN Wilson: 'Everyone writes in Tolstoy's shadow'". Interview with William Skidelsky, www.theguardian.com. April 21, 2012.

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• I should prefer to have a politician who regularly went to a massage parlour than one who promised a laptop computer for every teacher.

  A. N. Wilson

  Fake People, Teacher, Laptops

  1999 In the Observer, 21Mar.

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• When Christians start thinking about Jesus, things start breaking down, they lose their faith. It's perfectly possible to go to church every Sunday and not ask any questions, just because you like it as a way of life. They fear that if they ask questions they'll lose their Christ, the very linchpin of their religion.

  A. N. Wilson

  Christian, Jesus, Sunday

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• In the past, I used to counter any such notions by asking myself: 'Would you really want President Hattersley?' I now find that possibility rather cheers me up. With his chubby, Dickensian features and his knowledge of T.H. Green and other harmless leftish political classics, Hattersley might not be such a bad thing after all.

  A. N. Wilson

  Cheer, Past, Political

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• I might be deceiving myself but I do not think that I do have an inordinate fear of death.

  A. N. Wilson

  Thinking, Might, Deceiving

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• The Royal Family are not like you and me. They live in houses so big that you can walk round all day and never need to meet your spouse. The Queen and Prince Philip have never shared a bedroom in their lives. They don't even have breakfast together.

  A. N. Wilson

  Family, Queens, House

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• Truth comes to us mediated by human love.

  A. N. Wilson

  Humans, Human Love

  "Tennyson's In Memoriam: a farewell to religious certainty" by AN Wilson, www.theguardian.com. January 4, 2011.

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• It would no doubt be very sentimental to argue - but I would argue it nevertheless - that the peculiar combination of joy and sadness in bell music - both of clock chimes, and of change-ringing - is very typical of England. It is of a piece with the irony in which English people habitually address one another.

  A. N. Wilson

  Sadness, People, Joy

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• I was once naïve enough to ask the late Duke of Devonshire why he liked the town of Eastbourne. He replied with a self-deprecating shrug that one of the things he liked was that he owned it.

  A. N. Wilson

  Self, Upper Class, Towns

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• If you read about Mussolini or Stalin or some of these other great monsters of history, they were at it all the time, that they were getting up in the morning very early. They were physically very active. They didn't eat lunch.

  A. N. Wilson

  Morning, Lunch, Monsters

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• I suppose if I'd got a brilliant first and done research I might still be a don today, but I hope not. People become dons because they are incapable of doing anything else in life.

  A. N. Wilson

  People, Done, Research

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• Iris Murdoch did influence my early novels very much, and influence is never entirely good.

  A. N. Wilson

  Irises, Influence, Novel

  "I'm Mr Evil". www.theguardian.com. September 3, 2003.

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• I very much dislike the intolerance and moralism of many Christians, and feel more sympathy with Honest Doubters than with them.

  A. N. Wilson

  Sympathy, Christian, Doubters

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• Of all liars the most arrogant are biographers: those who would have us believe, having surveyed a few boxes full of letters, diaries, bank statements and photographs, that they can play at the recording angel and tell the whole truth about another human life.

  A. N. Wilson

  Liars, Believe, Angel

  A. N. Wilson (1990). “Incline Our Hearts”, Penguin Group USA

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• On the rare occasions when I spend a night in Oxford, the keeping of the hours by the clock towers in New College, and Merton, and the great booming of Tom tolling 101 times at 9 pm at Christ Church are inextricably interwoven with memories and regrets and lost joys. The sound almost sends me mad, so intense are the feelings it evokes.

  A. N. Wilson

  Memories, Regret, Night

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• I'm not saying all publishers have to be literary, but some interest in books would help.

  A. N. Wilson

  Book, Helping, Interest

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• The fact that logic cannot satisfy us awakens an almost insatiable hunger for the irrational.

  A. N. Wilson

  Math, Insatiable Hunger, Awakening

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• The approach of death certainly concentrates the mind.

  A. N. Wilson

  Mind, Approach

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• I don't write books inadvertently.

  A. N. Wilson

  Book, Writing

  "I'm Mr Evil". Interview with Matt Seaton, www.theguardian.com. September 3, 2003.

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• I believe the collapse of the House of Windsor is tied in with the collapse of the Church of England.

  A. N. Wilson

  Believe, House, Church

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• Tennyson seems to be the patron saint of the wishy washies, which is perhaps why I admire him so much, not only as a poet, but as a man.

  A. N. Wilson

  Men, Saint, Poet

  "Tennyson's In Memoriam: a farewell to religious certainty" by A. N. Wilson, www.theguardian.com. January 4, 2011.

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• I wanted passionately to be a priest.

  A. N. Wilson

  Priests, Wanted

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• I'm boring. My beliefs are neither here nor there.

  A. N. Wilson

  Belief, Boring

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• Fear of death has never played a large part in my consciousness - perhaps unimaginative of me.

  A. N. Wilson

  Consciousness, Fear Of Death

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• My kind publishers, Toby Mundy and Margaret Stead of Atlantic Books, have commissioned me to write the life of Queen Victoria.

  A. N. Wilson

  Queens, Book, Writing

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