Wilbur Smith

Wilbur Addison Smith (9 January 1933 – 13 November 2021) was a Northern Rhodesian-born British-South African novelist specializing in historical fiction about international involvement in Southern Africa across four centuries.

Quotes

• Something always dies when the lion feeds — and yet there is meat for those that follow him.
  • When the Lion Feeds (1964)

• "When a traveller gets a thorn in his foot," Mbejane went on softly, "and he is wise, he plucks it out — and he is a fool, he leaves it and says, 'I will keep this thorn to prick me so that I will always remember the road upon which I have travelled.' Nkosi, it is better to remember with pleasure than with pain."
  • When the Lion Feeds

• Beware of your most implacable enemy — yourself.
  • The Leopard Hunts in Darkness (1984)

• They do say that socialism is the ideal philosophy — just as long as you have capitalists to pay for it.
  • The Leopard Hunts in Darkness

• Should five slaves dictate to a king? If five baboons bark, must the black-maned lion tremble?
  • The Leopard Hunts in Darkness

• Robin Hood was also a terrorist ― but he had some style and a little class.
  • The Leopard Hunts in Darkness

• It's an old chestnut, but those set to guard a treasure, are too often those who loot it.
  • The Leopard Hunts in Darkness

• It’s a strange paradox that a man gifted with too many talents can fritter them all away without developing a single one to its full.
  • Rage (1987)

• History is a river that never ends. Today is history, and I am here at the fountainhead.
  • Rage

• Rage makes a man sick, my son. It spoils his appetite for life and keeps him from sleep at night. We cannot change our world, so we must look for the good things in life and enjoy those to the full.
  • Rage

• The best cure for racism is have somebody shoot at you. Man, it does not matter then what colour the arse is that comes to save yours — black or white, you’re ready to give it a big fat kiss.
  • Golden Fox (1990)

• A cynic had defined aid as simply the system by which poor white people in rich countries gave money to rich black people in poor countries to put into Swiss bank accounts.
  • Elephant Song (1991)

• No profit was too small to despise; no loss was too small to abhor.
  • Elephant Song

• War is the game played by old men with the lives of the young.
  • River God (1993)

• '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.' He felt the anger and outrage building in 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.'
  • Monsoon (1999)

• The branch breaks that will not bend with the wind. You must learn to bend.
  • The Triumph of the Sun (2005)

• Duplicity thy name is woman!
  • Those in Peril (2011)

• We are all mere insects caught in the web that the gods spin for us.
  • Desert God (2014)

Interview with Hilly Janes (9 March 2003)

"This much I know", The Guardian (9 March 2003)

• The most effective way to kill any animal is for it to die before it even knows you are there.

• I've eaten lion, leopard, crocodile, python. I don't recommend lion. It tastes exactly like when a tomcat comes into your house and sprays.

• It's a melancholy and moving thing to hunt an elephant. It's like shooting an old man.

• They say if you drink Zambezi water with your mother's milk, you are always a slave of Africa, and I am.