Quotes by James A. Michener

Being goal-oriented instead of self-oriented is crucial. I know so many people who want to be writers. But let me tell you, they really dont want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print. They dont want to go through the work of getting the damn book out. There is a huge difference.

No man leaves where he is and seeks a distant place unless he is in some respect a failure.

Writers turn dreams into print.

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.

Other things being roughly equal, that man lives most keenly who lives in closest harmony with nature. To be wholly alive a man must know storms, he must feel the ocean as his home or the air as his habitation. He must smell the things of earth, hear the sounds of living things and taste the rich abundance of the soil and sea.

It may seem contradictory, but in the languid tropics one spends more time contemplating those great good things of sound and sight and smell.

Therefore, men of Polynesia and Boston and China and Mount Fuji and the barrios of the Philippines, do not come to these islands empty-handed, or craven in spirit, or afraid to starve. There is no food here. In these islands there is no certainty. Bring your own food, your own gods, your own flowers and fruits and concepts. For if you come without resources to these islands you will perish... On these harsh terms the islands waited.

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. [The World Is My Home (1991)]

Only the rocks live forever, Gray Wolf said.

Because I am for them, Commander, because their ancestors stood up to that Nazi, Bligh, just like I would be for one little Jew, terrified and hungry, crossing the Pyrenees to get away to freedom from the Gestapo. One little Jew. You wouldnt have him in your house. He stinks, he has lice. But, you know what, Commander? I am for him, every time.” And he would punch me in the shoulder and lug his M-1 up onto the ridge, night after night.

a soldier lives always for the next battle, because he knows that before it arrives impossible changes can occur in his favor.

I decided (after listening to a talk radio commentator who abused, vilified, and scorned every noble cause to which I had devoted my entire life) that I was both a humanist and a liberal, each of the most dangerous and vilified type. I am a humanist because I think humanity can, with constant moral guidance, create a reasonably decent society. 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. I do not believe that pure reason can solve the perpetual problems unless it is modified by poetry and art and social vision. So I am a humanist. And if you want to charge me with being the most virulent kind—a secular humanist—I accept the accusation. [Interview, Parade magazine, 24 November 1991]

All I can do is play the game the way the cards fall.

You have to be eligible for luck to strike and I think thats a matter of education and preparation and character and all the other solid attributes that sometimes people laugh at.

It takes courage to know when you ought to be afraid.

The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.

Very early on in life, I decided the hell with it: material things werent for me. Christmas would come, and other kids would have all these presents, and it wouldnt bother me a bit.

An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.

Scientists dream about doing great things. Engineers do them.

If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.