James A. Michener Quotes
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If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.
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It was the silent time before dawn, along the shores of what had been one of the most beautiful lakes in southern Africa.
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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.
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If you type adeptly with 10 fingers, you're typing faster than your mind is working.
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I'm just a guy up on a hill writing.
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The chief character in this narrative is the Caribbean Sea, one of the world's most alluring bodies of water, a rare gem among the oceans, defined by the islands that form a chain of lovely jewels to the north and east.
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The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.
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When I first pitched my Navy tent on the island of Espiritu Santo to the north of Vila, the natives on nearby Malakula were cannibals. Today, they have representation in the United Nations.
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I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.
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Honest to God, I do all the research on these books myself.
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Russia, France, Germany and China. They revere their writers. America is still a frontier country that almost shudders at the idea of creative expression.
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I know the world of opera so intimately: historical sweep, sharply defined characters, not too rational an explanation of what's going on. It's a feast.
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About a billion years ago, long before the continents had separated to define the ancient oceans, or their own outlines had been determined, a small protuberance jutted out from the northwest corner of what would later become North America.
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No invader has ever conquered the heart of Poland, that spirit which is the inheritance of sons and daughters, the private passion of families and the ancient, unbreakable tie to all those who came before.
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In 1948 I addressed some students at Washington and Lee University, and in the question-answer period one young man observed with asperity, 'But it's easy for you to write. You've traveled.'
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I have only one bit of advice to the beginning writer: Be sure your novel is read by Rodgers and Hammerstein.
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America is a nation with many flaws that only the stupid would deny, but with hopes so vast that only the cowardly would refuse to acknowledge them.
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It is difficult to be king when the gods are changing.
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A person on dialysis undergoes very heavy and irritating treatment, and in time, it seems more than you can bear.
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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.
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They were a group of two dozen nurses completely surrounded by 100,000 unattached American men.
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There are no insoluble problems. Only time-consuming ones.
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A Pole is a man born with a sword in his right hand, a brick in his left. When the battle is over, he starts to rebuild.
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I can't remember how old I was, maybe 13, 14, and to see these fellows and hear their stories and to see life come to such a drab ending - my God, a poorhouse in those days was something. You would have to be inert not to respond to it.