James A. Michener Quotes
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If there was a turning point for me, it was 'The Bridges at Toko-Ri.' It is a very fine short novel. But it gave me very little satisfaction. Really. I decided I wasn't going to go down that avenue.
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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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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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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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I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.
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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 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.
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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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I'm just a guy up on a hill writing.
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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.
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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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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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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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Honest to God, I do all the research on these books myself.
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On Tuesday the freighter steamed through the Straits of Gibraltar and for five days plowed eastward through the Mediterranean, past islands and peninsulas rich in history, so that on Saturday night the steward advised Dr. Cullinane, 'If you wish an early sight of the Holy Land you must be up at dawn.'
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...the crucial Battle of Zamość, which is not stressed in most current histories because it involved a Polish-Russian battle in which the Poles won.
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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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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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It is difficult to be king when the gods are changing.
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Second, after a painful gap without any king, and a furious struggle by various foreign powers to elect men favorable to them, the Seym chose a pathetic Polish incompetent, who had the good sense to die rather promptly.
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For some time now they had been suspicious of him.
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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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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.