Quotes from Wilbur Smith

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.

I'm not perfect and I know it. I've done all sorts of things that are frowned upon these days - big-game hunting, fishing. I still enjoy fishing but I don't kill warm-blooded animals any more - I make an exception with birds sometimes.

I read all of Rider Haggard's books. For me he had the romance of Africa with a little bit of mysticism. I'm delighted to be looked on as his heir and be categorised as an adventure novelist because that's exactly what I am.

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.

I want to be seen as a good storyteller. I'm a manipulator as well.

I don't know how many lions and leopards I've shot. I've shot two elephants, which was enough - never again. It's a melancholy and moving thing to hunt an elephant. It's like shooting an old man.

Unlike corn or other insipid foods, meat rouses the demon in the heart of a warrior.

The man who drinks Zambezi waters must always return to drink again.

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.

She was a lovely vessel, with long clean lines and a high transom. Looking at her it was not difficult to understand why Crete was the preeminent naval power of the world. This was the fastest and most powerful ship on all the seas.

Duplicity thy name is woman!

You're too old for this type of living,' he told

As they slithered up the muddy bank, scores of tiny silver fish that had been feasting on the open wounds were slow to relinquish their hold and were drawn out with the carcasses. Stranded upon the mud-banks, they flopped and quivered like stars that had fallen to earth.

The thing I hate most about the gods is the fact that they are seldom at hand when you need them most.

Then she looked at his eyes and her panic smoothed away. With those eyes watching over her she was never to feel frightened again, not until the very end and that was a long time away. Going into his love was like going into a castle, a thick-walled place. A safe place where no one else could enter. The first feeling of it was so strong that she could only stand quietly and let the warmth wrap her.

Goodbye, my mistress, I whispered. Farewell, my heart.

but death is the ultimate purpose of life.

Young love has a peculiar splendor all of its own.

As I am sure you know, we seafaring men are a superstitious lot.

Enough, I can say no more.

they chewed on the cud.

Candella Rautenbach.

wave of sound swept over the ring as every man in the convocation shouted together.

There had been virtually no opposition, but three years of almost continuous action had taught Gerhard how, in times like this, the greatest danger was complacency.