3 December 2020 A. N. Wilson 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.
3 December 2020 A. N. Wilson Brain power improves by brain use, just as our bodily strength grows with exercise. And there is no doubt that a large proportion of the female population, from school days to late middle age, now have very complicated lives indeed.
3 December 2020 A. N. Wilson 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.
3 December 2020 A. N. Wilson 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.
3 December 2020 A. N. Wilson It is eerie being all but alone in Westminster Abbey. Without the tourists, there are only the dead, many of them kings and queens. They speak powerfully and put my thoughts into vivid perspective.
3 December 2020 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.
3 December 2020 A. N. Wilson I should prefer to have a politician who regularly went to a massage parlour than one who promised a laptop computer for every teacher.
3 December 2020 A. N. Wilson Fear of death has never played a large part in my consciousness – perhaps unimaginative of me.
3 December 2020 A. N. Wilson The death of any man aged 56 is very sad for his widow and family. And no one would deny that Steve Jobs was a brilliant and highly innovative technician, with great business flair and marketing ability.
3 December 2020 A. N. Wilson I don’t think you can tell the objective truth about a person. That’s why people write novels.
3 December 2020 A. N. Wilson 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.
3 December 2020 A. N. Wilson 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.
3 December 2020 A. N. Wilson 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.
3 December 2020 A. N. Wilson I might be deceiving myself but I do not think that I do have an inordinate fear of death.
3 December 2020 A. N. Wilson I very much dislike the intolerance and moralism of many Christians, and feel more sympathy with Honest Doubters than with them.
