James Clavell Quotes
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Life and death are the same...Leave karma to karma.
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All stories have a beginning, a middle and an ending, and if they're any good, the ending is a beginning.
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So much of 'normal, civilized' life is bull that you can't imagine... What frightens you, doesn't frighten me, what frightens me, you'd laugh at.
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Isn't man but a blossom taken by wind, and only the mountains and the sea and the stars and this land of the gods everlasting?
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To think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral down into ever increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one of the things that discipline and training is all about.
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Changi for me - of course it's easy to be wise after the event, and to discuss it cleverly after the event - was about as near as you can get to being dead and still be alive.
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Wars are fought by teenagers, you realize that. They really ought to be fought by the politicians and old people who start these wars.
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Christ, it's so good to be alive.
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It's always important to take time to study men -- important men. Friends and enemies.
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Changi became my university instead of my prison. Among the inmates there were experts in all walks of life - the high and the low roads. I studied and absorbed everything I could from physics to counterfeiting, but most of all I learned the art of surviving.
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God gives us intelligence to uncover the wonders of nature. Without the gift, nothing is possible.
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The scarcity of years does not necessitate lack of wisdom.
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I write short stories. They may appear big in size, but when you consider it, they're four or five novels in one... In return for picking up one of my books, I'm trying to give them value for their money... the goal of writing any book is to create the illusion that what you are reading is reality and you're part of it.
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How can a man be so brave and so stupid, so gentle and so cruel, so warming and so detestable -- all at the same time?
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There is no dignity for either the sufferer or the torturer
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What are clouds, but an excuse for the sky? What is life, but an escape from death?
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Love is a Christian word, Anjin-san. Love is a Christian thought, a Christian ideal. We have no word for 'love' as I understand you to mean it. Duty, loyalty, honor, respect, desire, those words and thoughts are what we have, all that we need.
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How beautiful life is and how sad! How fleeting, with no past and no future, only a limitless now.
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Leave the problems of God to God and karma to karma. Today you're here and nothing you do will change that. Today you are alive and here and honored and blessed with good fortune. Look at this suset, it's beautiful, neh? This sunset exists. Tomorrow does not exist. There is only now. Please look. It is so beautiful and it will never happen ever again, never, not this sunset, never in all infinity. Lose yourself in it, make yourself one with nature and do not worry about karma, yours, mine, or that of the village.
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Anger is one of the most intimate of emotions and to expose it to strangers is one of the most stupid and sickening things to do. Never get angry with strangers because they are strangers.
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Only by living at the edge of death can you understand the indescribable joy of life - Shogun.
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.., by universal custom, your enemy is never more polite than when he is planning or has planned your destruction.
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It's a saying they have, that a man has a false heart in his mouth for the world to see, another in his breast to show to his special friends and his family, and the real one, the true one, the secret one, which is never known to anyone except to himself alone, hidden only God knows where.
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Anger is something you should only vent in front of intimates, and friends and relations. Never be angry in front of strangers because you lose face.
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The more I know, the more sure I am I know so little. The eternal paradox.
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Guard yourself and your conscience no one else will and know that a bad decision at the right time can destroy you far more surely than any bullet!
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Karma is the beginning of knowledge. Next is patience. Patience is very important. The strong are the patient ones, Anjin-san. patience means holding back your inclination to the seven emotions: hate, adoration, joy, anxiety, anger, grief, fear. If you don't give way to the seven, you're patient, then you'll soon understand all manner of things and be in harmony with Eternity.
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First the priests arrive. Then the conquistadores.
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You've commited murder just as much as Helene did. You killed a fly with a human head. She killed a human with a fly head.
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How baffling it was that even the most cunning and clever people would frequently see only what they wanted to see, and would rarely look beyond the thinnest of facades. Or they would ignore reality, dismissing it as the facade. And then, when their whole world fell to pieces...they would tear their topknots or rend their clothes and bewail their karma, blaming gods or kami or luck or their lords or husbands or vassals-anything or anyone-but never themselves.
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