Quotes By 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.

I've never had a study in my life. I'm like Jane Austen - I work on the corner of the dining table.

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.

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 irony in which English people habitually address one another.

I don't write books inadvertently.

I've got nothing very original to say myself.

I think I became a Catholic to annoy my father.

Fear of death has never played a large part in my consciousness - perhaps unimaginative of me.

Of all liars the most arrogant are biographers: those who would have us believe, having surveyed a few boxes full of letters, diaries, bank statements and photographs, that they can play at the recording angel and tell the whole truth about another human life.

The United States is the ultimate land of optimistic promise, but it also gave birth to quintessentially pessimistic tragedy: 'Moby-Dick.'

I'm starting to realize that people are beginning to want to know about me. It's a jolly strange idea.

When Christians start thinking about Jesus, things start breaking down, they lose their faith. It's perfectly possible to go to church every Sunday and not ask any questions, just because you like it as a way of life. They fear that if they ask questions they'll lose their Christ, the very linchpin of their religion.

I'm boring. My beliefs are neither here nor there.

The Royal Family are not like you and me. They live in houses so big that you can walk round all day and never need to meet your spouse. The Queen and Prince Philip have never shared a bedroom in their lives. They don't even have breakfast together.

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 share.

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 busybody's work is never done.

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

I suppose if I'd got a brilliant first and done research I might still be a don today, but I hope not. People become dons because they are incapable of doing anything else in life.

I'm like Jane Austen - I work on the corner of the dining table.

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

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

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.

'In Memoriam' has been my companion for all my grownup life.

I might be deceiving myself but I do not think that I do have an inordinate fear of death.

Tennyson seems to be the patron saint of the wishy washies, which is perhaps why I admire him so much, not only as a poet, but as a man.

Personally, I think universities are finished. So much rubbish gets taught.

IQ in general has improved since tests first began. Psychologists think that this is because modern life becomes ever more complicated.

If only Queen Elizabeth II had the intellectual, political and linguistic skills of Queen Elizabeth I, many people would support giving her some of the powers of an elected president.

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.