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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.

A. N. Wilson

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A. N. Wilson
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: January 1
Biographer
Historian
Novelist
Teacher
Writer
Stone
Staffordshire
Andrew Norman Wilson
Much
Wishy
Men
Tennyson
Patron
Saint
Admire
Poet
Perhaps
Seems

More quotes by A. N. Wilson

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I'm boring. My beliefs are neither here nor there.
A. N. Wilson
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It is hard to think of anything which more tragically and clearly exemplifies the phenomenon of good political intentions achieving the precise opposite of their aim.
A. N. Wilson
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In the 18th century, James Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny, and Richard Arkwright pioneered the water-propelled spinning frame which led to the mass production of cotton. This was truly revolutionary. The cotton manufacturers created a whole new class of people - the urban proletariat. The structure of society itself would never be the same.
A. N. Wilson
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I very much dislike the intolerance and moralism of many Christians, and feel more sympathy with Honest Doubters than with them.
A. N. Wilson
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In universities and intellectual circles, academics can guarantee themselves popularity - or, which is just as satisfying, unpopularity - by being opinionated rather than by being learned.
A. N. Wilson
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Fear of death has never played a large part in my consciousness - perhaps unimaginative of me.
A. N. Wilson
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I don't write books inadvertently.
A. N. Wilson
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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
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I wanted passionately to be a priest.
A. N. Wilson
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I had lost faith in biography.
A. N. Wilson
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My belief has come about in large measure because of the lives and examples of people I have known - not the famous, not saints, but friends and relations who have lived, and faced death, in the light of the Resurrection story, or in the quiet acceptance that they have a future after they die.
A. N. Wilson
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We cannot hope for a society in which formal organized religion dies out. But we can stop behaving as if it was worthy of our collective respect.
A. N. Wilson
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Millions of Christians can and do go through life attending church, listening to sermons, reciting the creeds and never confront the seeming contradictions, redaction and myths passed off as verifiable history.
A. N. Wilson
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We, while noting many things amiss about Victorian society, more often sense them judging us.
A. N. Wilson
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Since Einstein developed his theory of relativity, and Rutherford and Bohr revolutionised physics, our picture of the world has radically changed.
A. N. Wilson
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I might be deceiving myself but I do not think that I do have an inordinate fear of death.
A. N. Wilson
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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
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I'm not saying all publishers have to be literary, but some interest in books would help.
A. N. Wilson
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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
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If you read about Mussolini or Stalin or some of these other great monsters of history, they were at it all the time, that they were getting up in the morning very early. They were physically very active. They didn't eat lunch.
A. N. Wilson