A. N. Wilson Quotes

Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me.

I have seen three emperors in their nakedness, and the sight was not inspiring.

Is it not passing brave to be a King and ride in triumph through Persepolis?

I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more.

Now all my teachers are dead except silence.

To walk into the hall of mirrors of Versailles as Louis XIV and deliver a monologue on your own in an empty hall of mirrors is like no other experience.

He sat upon his throne, which is made of skulls.

And I will look down and see my murmuring bones and the deep water like wind, like a roof of wind, and after a long time they cannot distinguish even bones upon the lonely and inviolate sand.

Born alone, die alone, no crew to keep my crown or throne

Kings should disdain to die, and only disappear.

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings.

To us who remain behind is left this day of memories. Every year--in the full tide of spring, at the height of the symphony of flowers and love and life--there comes a pause, and through the silence we hear the lonely pipe of death.

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

That might sound shocking to some - and don't worry, I don't see myself as a king.

It is indeed immensely picturesque. I can fancy sitting all a summer's day watching its shadows shorten and lengthen again, and drawing a delicious contrast between the world's duration and the feeble span of individual experience. There is something in Stonehenge almost reassuring; and if you are disposed to feel that life is rather a superficial matter, and that we soon get to the bottom of things, the immemorial gray pillars may serve to remind you of the enormous background of time.

And if there are no cars or planes, and if no one’s Uncle John is out in the wood lot west of town banging away at a quail or pheasant; if the only sound is the slow beat of your own heart, you can hear another sound, and that is the sound of life winding down to its cyclic close, waiting for the first winter snow to perform last rites.

The concept of Queen is to be regal and majestic. Glamour is part of us and we want to be dandy.

Let's learn to live, for we must die alone.

After all, when you take a walk you're after solitude, and if the solitude won't come to you, you must go to it.

When you're alive and everything is going fine, why talk about things? Talking's for later, when talking's all there is that's left.

I have always valued quiet, and the eternity of it that I face is no more dreadful than the eternity of quiet that preceded my birth.

Most of us have love in our lives. Most of us love other people are are ourselves loved by others. But make no mistake: you are alone in the world. You were born alone, even if you were born conjoined. And you die alone, unable to bring a single person with you.