A. N. Wilson
A. N. Wilson
Andrew Norman Wilson is an English writer and newspaper columnist, known for his critical biographies, novels, works of popular history and religious views. He is an occasional columnist for the Daily Mail and former columnist for the London Evening Standard, and has been an occasional contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, New Statesman, The Spectator and The Observer...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth27 October 1950
radio thought-of-the-day easy
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.
thinking church loyal
I think that if you can't be loyal to the Church, it's best to get out.
people done research
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.
education circles intellectual
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.
self upper-class towns
I was once naïve enough to ask the late Duke of Devonshire why he liked the town of Eastbourne. He replied with a self-deprecating shrug that one of the things he liked was that he owned it.
thinking opposites history
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.
views newspapers
In general, Hitler embodied the view of any popular newspaper.
judging history victorian
We, while noting many things amiss about Victorian society, more often sense them judging us.
what-matters creeds firmness
As Hitler himself later enunciated, it matters not how idiotic the creed, what matters is the firmness with which it is enunciated.
book helping interest
I'm not saying all publishers have to be literary, but some interest in books would help.
priests wanted
I wanted passionately to be a priest.
wise men practice
I am shy to admit that I have followed the advice given all those years ago by a wise archbishop to a bewildered young man: that moments of unbelief 'don't matter,' that if you return to a practice of the faith, faith will return.
formal worthy collectives
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.
mother space intellectual
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.