James A. Michener Quotes
Whatever I did, there was always someone around who was better qualified. They just didn't bother to do it.
Quotes to Explore
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I'm happy to sacrifice a big pay cheque for my happiness, if that's not too corny a thing to say. It's probably more naive than mature to say that, maybe, but that's how I feel.
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I had no intention of becoming a performer, and yet under miraculous circumstances I was brought into the music industry fold. If divine powers hadn't intervened, I'd still be living in China working in some area of Sino-American comparative law.
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I think that most people don't even know that I do other things. They think that Homer is all that I do.
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I've always worn earplugs, but I'm sure my hearing's not great.
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My stand-up is quite good now, people say. It's just like a big conversation each time. Every gig is a rehearsal.
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I do things, and other people laugh at them. I rarely know what the joke is supposed to be or why they're laughing.
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It's actually very important to put a little foundation up into your hairline, or else it looks like your face is not yours - like someone just Photoshopped it on!
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How do you tell your mother that you feel you're getting... old? If I'm... old, then what is she?
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I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.
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I do what I do. You like it, great. You don't, go listen to somebody else. I'm stickin' with the people who stuck with me.
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Hip-hop is when you have crowd participation; when you chant at the audience and they chant back at you; when you wave your hands in the air like you just don't care; or some breakdancing. Everything today is just low-beat, real bass-y, bass-y, good rap records.
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I often find it's just the confidence that makes you sexy, not what your body looks like. It's how you feel about yourself that makes you sexy.
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Funny you mention my dinner parties when I have just suggested that inviting close friends over to share a meal with candlelight and wine at your table could be a form of religious experience for some people. To me it's a form of sacrament.
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I lived in New York until I was eleven years old, when my mother left my two older sisters and my father. My mother is 90 percent blind and deaf. She left and moved all the way to California. So I left my two older sisters and my father behind at the age of eleven and moved cross-country to take care of her.
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A good team, like a good show, comes into being when the separate individuals working together create, in essence, another separate higher entity - the team - the show - which is better than any of those individuals can ever be on their own.
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On an unconscious level, the demonization of sexuality usually implies the demonization of males and the victimization of females.
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I know that timid breathing. Where Do I begin and end? And where, As I strum the thing, do I pick up That which momentously declares Itself not to be I and yet Must be. It could be nothing else.
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Question is, are you bozos smart enough to feel stupid?
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I think there are some artists whose works are misanthropic.
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Horror movies are the best date movies. There's no wondering, 'When do I put my arm around her?'
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We sailed for more days than I knew how to count, sometimes hugging the mainland coast, sometimes passing from one island to another over the waves. The summer weather blessed us with clear skies and tame waters. We did have a couple of times when we had to put in to shore quickly to wait out a thunderstorm. I think Zeus didn’t want our quest to become too comfortable.
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We have no right to express an opinion until we know all of the answers.
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There's the assumption being made by the national security advisers to the Obama administration that the North Korean leadership is not suicidal, that they know they will be obliterated if they attacked the United States. But I would point that everything in South Korea and Japan is well within range of what they might want to do.
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Whatever I did, there was always someone around who was better qualified. They just didn't bother to do it.
