14 Quotes & Sayings By Wilbur Smith

Wilbur Smith was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1932. He joined the South African Air Force in 1949, and in 1953 attended the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg where he read law. He was called to the Bar in 1956 after which he worked in the Department of External Affairs in Pretoria. In 1960 he left South Africa for London where he obtained his publishing credentials in 1962 Read more

He was a journalist for many years, writing for The Sunday Times Magazine, The Times, The Observer and The Spectator. His first effort as a novelist was published in 1973 under the title The Physician which won both the Gold Dagger Award and the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award for best crime novel of 1974. While still working on this book, Wilbur Smith received an invitation from Ian Fleming to write a James Bond novel.

This resulted in his best selling book, The Gold Coast Murders (1977), which was adapted into three films directed by Guy Hamilton starring Christopher Walken and Honor Blackman. The book has been described as "the definitive Bond novel." Following this success Wilbur Smith published two further Bond novels; Octopussy (1983) and Never Say Never Again (1987). In 1997 he wrote an episode of the BBC TV series "The Jewel In The Crown" entitled "Maiden Castle," which was written by Nobel Laureate Ken Follett and directed by Ken Loach.

Since then he has published many other works, including his novel Blood Justice (1994), The Burning Shore (1995), and Birds of Prey (1997).

1
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
2
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
3
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
4
They do say that socialism is the ideal philosophy-just as long as you have capitalists to pay for it. Wilbur Smith
5
More than weapons, we need a leader. Wilbur Smith
6
It's not the dying but the manner of it. Wilbur Smith
7
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
8
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
9
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
10
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
11
My mother-in-law speaks not a word of English. I speak not a word of Tajiki. So I smile at her ingratiatingly and she fixes me with a beady eye. Wilbur Smith
12
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
13
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