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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

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Wilbur Smith
Age: 91
Born: 1933
Born: January 9
Mathematician
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Broken Hill
Wilbur Addison Smith
Young
Awe
Country
Aspire
Thing
Lifestyle
Pirates
Really
Opportunities
Somalia
Held
Pirate
Boys
Glamorous
Economic
Perceived
Opportunity
Disturbing

More quotes by Wilbur Smith

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I have never had too much trouble for creative ideas to spring up in my mind.
Wilbur Smith
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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
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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
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Let it simply be said that we know more about the details of the hours immediately before and the actual death of Jesus, in and near Jerusalem, than we know about the death of any other one man in all the ancient world.
Wilbur Smith
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Usually halfway through a book I have a serious depression, so I go on safari on my ranch in South Africa, or fishing off my island in the Seychelles. When I come back and re-read it, I think: 'What was all that about, Smith? It's fine, just get on with it.'
Wilbur Smith
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Every time one of my books sells a million copies in paperback, Pan Macmillan gives me a gold statuette of Pan. I have about 20 of them.
Wilbur Smith
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I shot my first lion at the age of 14 when a pride threatened my father's livestock while he was away on holiday.
Wilbur Smith
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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
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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
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What I like about writing is the sense of godlike power it gives you.
Wilbur Smith
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I put my soul into every book I write.
Wilbur Smith
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beware of your most implacable enemy-yourself.
Wilbur Smith
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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
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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
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I love the sea as much as I love the veldt of Africa.
Wilbur Smith
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You don't turn out as many books as I did then by sitting around, being cozy with the family.
Wilbur Smith
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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
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History is a river that never ends. Today is history, and I am here at the fountainhead.
Wilbur Smith
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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
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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.
Wilbur Smith