A. N. Wilson Quotes

The discussion of ideas as opposed to the American narcissistic obsession with what's going on with the self, that's the general thing people are talking about.

The artist's job is to be a witness to his time in history.

When I saw 'My Fair Lady,' I was surprised at how mean and misogynistic Henry was. Maybe that's why it's dropping out of public consciousness.

Christopher Hitchens's autobiography, 'Hitch 22', is a poignant read and very interesting because I have a very poor knowledge of recent political history - or, for that matter, distant political history.

I remember when I first saw Whoopi Goldberg doing standup, and she was wearing a sheet on her head, basically pretending to be this little white girl with long luxurious blonde hair. Everyone can relate to that. It's an oral history of black women's lives through laughter.

People pass a lot of judgment about each other in India, and that is a tendency I don't like.

The weekly cartoons, as were my plays, came from a sense of criticism, criticism of the times, critical of the culture, of our manners and attitudes towards each other. The children's books come from the reverse. They're more supportive, since we're living in a time where we talk more about kids and do less, we talk about balancing the budget and we do it by cutting education.

What can the England of 1940 have in common with the England of 1840? But then, what have you in common with the child of five whose photograph your mother keeps on the mantelpiece? Nothing, except that you happen to be the same person.

I was trying to write a straightforward book of sociological analysis, or at least cultural criticism, and I failed.

The more I think you over, the more it comes home to me what an unmitigated Middle Victorian ass you are!

In The Sellout I tried to capture how we can talk and see race, how we see urbanity, and how we see our history.

It is quite easy to remark the absurdities and contradictions of a country's social system from outside its borders, but very difficult if one has been brought up in it.

Naturally, grown-up citizens are concerned about the beatniks and delinquents. ... The question is why the grownups do not, more soberly, draw the same conclusions as the youth. Or, since no doubt many people are quite clear about the connection that the structure of society that has becoming increasingly dominant in our country is disastrous to the growth of excellence and manliness, why don't more people speak up and say so?

Nine English traditions out of ten date from the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Look what is happening in the world - we are being conditioned by society, by the culture we live in, and that culture is the product of man. There is nothing holy, or divine, or eternal about culture.

If the poet can no longer speak for society, but only for himself, then we are at the last ditch.

Surely it isn't illegal here to complain about young people these days? How cruel. I had thought it a basic part of human nature, one of the few universally practiced human customs.

The reason Victorian society was so restricted and repressed was that it was impossible to move without knocking something over.

I'm anti - the pussy generation. Not to be confused with pussy.

It's okay to be eccentric if you're rich; otherwise you're just crazy.

All art is fundamentally subversive, because it upsets people's perceptions, their notions about society. Therefore, art is dangerous, but good art is always making us reassess our thoughts and feelings about how we relate to other people. There are always people who fear that and want to suppress that.

America... where law and custom alike are based upon the dreams of spinsters...

Radical historians now the tell the story of Thanksgiving from the point of view of the turkey.

The impartiality of history is not that of the mirror, which merely reflects objects, but of the judge, who sees, listens, and decides.

It is a mark of civilised man that he seeks to understand his traditions, and to criticise them, not to swallow them whole.