James A. Michener Quotes
-
The dead are dead but they rely on us to fulfill their hopes.
→ -
In a small Polish farm community, during the fall planting season of 1981, events occurred which electrified the world, sending reverberations of magnitude to capitals as diverse as Washington, Peking and especially Moscow.
→ -
I was a Navy officer writing about Navy problems and I simply stole this lovely Army nurse and popped her into a Navy uniform, where she has done very well for herself.
→ -
Millions upon millions of years ago, when the continents were already formed and the principal features of the earth had been decided, there existed, then as now, one aspect of the world that dwarfed all other ... a mighty ocean, resting uneasily to the east of the largest continent, a restless ever-changing, gigantic body of water that would later be described as Pacific.
→ -
A nation becomes what its young people read in their youth. Its ideals are fashioned then, its goals strongly determined.
→ -
If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home.
→ -
I am always interested in why young people become writers, and from talking with many I have concluded that most do not want to be writers working eight and ten hours a day and accomplishing little; they want to have been writers, garnering the rewards of having completed a best-seller. They aspire to the rewards of writing but not to the travail.
→ -
If your book doesn't keep you up nights when you are writing it, it won't keep anyone up nights reading it.
→ -
I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains.
→ -
You have to be eligible for luck to strike, and I think that's a matter of education and preparation, and character and all the other solid attributes that sometimes people laugh at.
→ -
If a young aspirant had a modicum of skill and a busy typewriter she or he would sooner or later get a foothold in one of the magazines and a leaping start on the ladder upward.
→ -
We risk great peril if we kill off this spirit of adventure, for we cannot predict how and in what seemingly unrelated fields it will manifest itself. A nation that loses its forward thrust is in danger, and one of the most effective ways to retain that thrust is to keep exploring possibilities. The sense of exploration is intimately bound up with human resolve, and for a nation to believe that it is still committed to a forward motion is to ensure its continuance.
→ -
Religious hatreds ought not to be propagated at all, but certainly not on a tax-exempt basis.
→ -
For this is the journey that men and women make, to find themselves. If they fail in this, it doesn't matter much else what they find.
→ -
I am terrified of restrictive religious doctrine, having learned from history that when men who adhere to any form of it are in control, common men like me are in peril.
→ -
It was the silent time before dawn, along the shores of what had been one of the most beautiful lakes in southern Africa.
→ -
organizations like the church or General Motors promote a man up and up until he reaches a spot which he is obviously incapable of filling, and there they lay him to rest.
→ -
I do believe that everyone growing up faces differential opportunities. With me, it was books and travel and some good teachers.
→ -
We are never prepared for what we expect.
→ -
The arrogance of the artist is a very profound thing, and it fortifies you.
→ -
If I were a young man, I would not hesitate at writing anything to get into print, except pornography.
→ -
I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.
→ -
First buy a cowboy hat and boots. Then you're on your way to being a Texan.
→ -
Being goal-oriented instead of self-oriented is crucial. I know so many people who want to be writers. But let me tell you, they really don't want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print. They don't want to go through the work of getting the damn book out. There is a huge difference.
→ -
a soldier lives always for the next battle, because he knows that before it arrives impossible changes can occur in his favor.
→ -
I feel myself the inheritor of a great background of people. Just who, precisely, they were, I have never known. I might be part Negro, might be part Jew, part Muslim, part Irish. So I can't afford to be supercilious about any group of people because I may be that people.
→ -
A writer can make a fortune in America, but he can't make a living.
→ -
Contrary to what people think, I slave over my books.
→ -
I had learned volleyball in the Navy, where all the captains and admirals wanted to be spikers, and I found then that a man who can subdue his own desires and master the art of serving others can make himself invaluable. In choosing sides the team captain always chose the good spikers on the first and second choice, but then the spikers would grab his arm and whisper, 'Take Michener.' I was never chosen lower than third, because I was needed. I wasn't good, but I was faithful.
→ -
I thought that perhaps the most creative mix for a society would be nine parts solid worker from institutions like MIT to one part poet from Marrakech, but in spite of the fact that I myself had been trained to be one of the solid workers, which meant that all of my sympathies lay with that group, I would not surrender the poet. The problem was to find him.
→
Related Authors
-
Grace Kelly Film actress -
Leon Uris Novelist -
Wilbur Smith Novelist -
Edward Rutherfurd Writer -
John Jakes Writer -
George Nakashima Architect -
Ernest Hemingway Author -
John le Carre Author -
Elmer Bernstein Composer -
James Clavell Novelist -
Steve Berry Author -
Oscar Hammerstein II Librettist -
Max von Sydow Actor -
Larry McMurtry Novelist -
Edward Said Professor -
Herman Wouk Author -
Pearl S. Buck Writer -
Norman Mailer Novelist -
Dean Koontz Author -
Mitzi Gaynor Actress