Quotes by A. N. Wilson

About A. N. Wilson:

Andrew Norman Wilson is an English writer and newspaper columnist, known for his critical biographies, novels, works of popular history and religious views. He is an occasional columnist for the Daily Mail and former columnist for the London Evening Standard, and has been an occasional contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, New Statesman, The Spectator and The Observer.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The scribbler's life is never done.

A. N. Wilson

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

A. N. Wilson

People become dons because they are incapable of doing anything else in life.

A. N. Wilson

Watching a whole cluster of friends, and my own mother, die over quite a short space of time convinced me that purely materialist 'explanations' for our mysterious human existence simply won't do - on an intellectual level.

A. N. Wilson

I do not find it easy to articulate thoughts about religion. I remain the sort of person who turns off 'Thought for the Day' when it comes on the radio.

A. N. Wilson

Like many people in Britain, I have an affectionate respect for the Queen, and am surprised that I should be having such republican thoughts.

A. N. Wilson

Nearly all monster stories depend for their success on Jack killing the Giant, Beowulf or St. George slaying the Dragon, Harry Potter triumphing over the basilisk. That is their inner grammar, and the whole shape of the story leads towards it.

A. N. Wilson

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

A. N. Wilson

Truth comes to us mediated by human love.

A. N. Wilson

When I think about atheist friends, including my father, they seem to me like people who have no ear for music, or who have never been in love.

A. N. Wilson

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 ...

A. N. Wilson

The latest research has revealed that women have a higher IQ than men.

A. N. Wilson

It is the woman - nearly always - in spite of all the advances of modern feminism, who still takes responsibility for the bulk of the chores, as well as doing her paid job. This is true even in households where men try to be unselfish and to do their...

A. N. Wilson

I don't think you can tell the objective truth about a person. That's why people write novels.

A. N. Wilson

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

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

A. N. Wilson

If you know somebody is going to be awfully annoyed by something you write, that's obviously very satisfying, and if they howl with rage or cry, that's honey.

A. N. Wilson

It is remarkable how easily children and grown-ups adapt to living in a dictatorship organised by lunatics.

A. N. Wilson

Since Einstein developed his theory of relativity, and Rutherford and Bohr revolutionised physics, our picture of the world has radically changed.

A. N. Wilson

Reading about Queen Victoria has been a passion of mine since, as a child, I came across Laurence Housman's play 'Happy and Glorious,' with its Ernest Shepard illustrations.

A. N. Wilson

Everyone writes in Tolstoy's shadow, whether one feels oneself to be Tolstoyan or not.

A. N. Wilson

Author Bio

  • NameA. N. Wilson
  • DescriptionEnglish writer
  • BornOctober 27, 1950
  • ProfessionHistorian
  • AwardsJohn Llewellyn Rhys Prize