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" When I vacate this sack of old bones I won't care what you do with it. Bury or burn it but don't make much fuss. "
Wilbur Smith
Old
You
Bones
Related Quotes:
" To me, my characters are more real than most people I meet. "
Wilbur Smith
Meet
Real
People
" 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
I Can
Reality
Future
" They say if you drink Zambezi water with your mother's milk, you are always a slave of Africa, and I am. "
Wilbur Smith
Mother
Say
Water
" My family wasn't terribly affluent and looked upon money very carefully as something that had to be saved, not spent. My father built the ducting that took air into the copper mines and made about 6 d a yard in the Thirties, which was good money back then. "
Wilbur Smith
Back
Money
Good
" I used to own an island in the Seychelles and had a big boat there and one day I came across some Somali pirates who were passing by on their way to re-provision their boat. They didn't even acknowledge me - which is unheard of among sailors - and it was like looking into the eyes of a black mamba. "
Wilbur Smith
Day
Black
Me
" 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. "
Wilbur Smith
Elephant
Know
Man
" I still get enormous pleasure and a sense of fulfillment out of writing a book that I'm proud of. I see myself as a bit like a jewel-maker who can sit back and admire his work. "
Wilbur Smith
Writing
Proud
Book
" I have done everything I have ever wanted to do. I have swum with tiger sharks, been charged by lions and elephants. I have been shot three times, chased by crocodiles and, God be praised, I've made enough money that I can continue to do all the things I want to for as long as I am able. "
Wilbur Smith
Money
Enough
God
" Cape Town's beaches are superb and while the water on the Atlantic side is damn cold, it's very pleasant on the other side. Bring your golf clubs if you play - Cape Town has some fabulous golf courses. "
Wilbur Smith
Fabulous
You
Golf
" The first novel I wrote was a monster - clocking in at 180,000 words - but it died a death, a death it deserved. It was called 'The Gods First Make Mad.' It was a good title, but it was the only good thing about the book. I didn't let that put me off. "
Wilbur Smith
Words
Book
Me
" Politicians all over the world cater to domestic vote banks. They will spend only on what their constituents want. So unless there is a grass root green movement in a nation the politicians will not be willing to spend money on curbing emissions. More awareness is needed amongst the people to effect the real change in how governments spend. "
Wilbur Smith
Green
Change
Money
" There is no quick way of making money. People come to you with tips for the races or offer the latest Ponzi scheme, but I can see them coming a mile off. I just go with the adage that if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. "
Wilbur Smith
Good
Money
People
" There's nothing so aphrodisiacal for a woman as money and success. "
Wilbur Smith
Money
Success
Nothing
" All my characters have got a big slice of me in them. A big piece of me, because it's my dialogue and this is the way I think and talk. "
Wilbur Smith
Think
Me
Talk
" They say I'm worth either €200 million, €100 million, €50 million or €10 million, but that's something between God, the HMRC and myself. "
Wilbur Smith
God
Myself
Worth
" I have been blessed in many ways, and one of those is to have been born in Africa, for me a great treasure house of stories. I have been researching it since my infancy; reading about it, talking to men and women who have spent their lives in this land, living it as I have and loving it as I do. I write almost entirely from my own experience. "
Wilbur Smith
Experience
Men
Women
" There are people out there with an eye on my hard-earned cash who think that I am a pushover. I am not! "
Wilbur Smith
People
Cash
Eye
" Many people have compared me to the Victorian adventure writer, Rider Haggard. I accept that as a compliment. As a boy growing up in Central Africa I read all Haggard's African novels. "
Wilbur Smith
Boy
Me
Growing Up
" I go on a hunting safari at least once a year to Botswana, which is fantastic because we have a huge area of wilderness entirely to ourselves. My island covers roughly 55 acres, which again I have to myself, with nearly half a kilometre of private beach with my own jetties and boats. "
Wilbur Smith
Beach
Hunting
Own
" I'm a feminist. The women in my books in recent years have been powerful characters and I love to see a woman with a cute bottom walking past. "
Wilbur Smith
Powerful
Women
Woman
" I never set out to write literature; I set out to tell stories. And some of my work may be very raunchy and very bloodthirsty - but life, for me, is a violent thing. "
Wilbur Smith
Work
Me
Never
" I don't want children. Why should I let some strange little monster into my life to destroy what to me is a perfect set-up? "
Wilbur Smith
Life
Me
Perfect
" I work on my novels wherever I have a PC, and I have four or five places around the world where I do have a PC. These days you can just slip a little flash drive into your top pocket, fly for 12 hours, come to another place, plug it into a computer and you are away again. "
Wilbur Smith
You
Work
World
" The really disturbing thing about Somalia is that in a country where there are few economic opportunities, pirates are perceived as glamorous and are held in awe by young boys who aspire to their lifestyle. "
Wilbur Smith
Lifestyle
Opportunities
Country
" I've been associated with Macmillan for over 45 years. I'd like to thank them for their continued commitment to my backlist and I look forward to continuing to work with them as they publish my next novel, 'Vicious Circle' in 2013. "
Wilbur Smith
Forward
Work
Look
" I am a closet birdwatcher. I can identify Southern African species, but it irks me I can barely tell a jay from a blackbird in the U.K. "
Wilbur Smith
Southern
Closet
I Am
" It's probably true that everyone has a book in them, although it may not be a very good one. "
Wilbur Smith
May
True
Book
" I grew up in Rhodesia on my father's ranch and every year he used to take us on safari in some remote area of the wilderness. "
Wilbur Smith
Father
Year
Used
" What I like about writing is the sense of godlike power it gives you. "
Wilbur Smith
Writing
About
Like
" I wanted to be a great white hunter, a prospector for gold, or a slave trader. But then, when I was eight, my parents sent me to a boarding school in South Africa. It was the equivalent of a British public school with cold showers, beatings and rotten food. But what it also had was a library full of books. "
Wilbur Smith
Me
Gold
Great