James A. Michener Quotes
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Silence, much more powerful than before, much more shot through with the meaning of life and the accumulated wisdom of history.
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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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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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I'm just a guy up on a hill writing.
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If you type adeptly with 10 fingers, you're typing faster than your mind is working.
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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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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 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 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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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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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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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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I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.
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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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Honest to God, I do all the research on these books myself.
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It is difficult to be king when the gods are changing.
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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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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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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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For some time now they had been suspicious of him.
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I had been sent to Mexico to cover a murder, one of a remarkable kind.