James A. Michener Quotes
Top 79 wise famous quotes and sayings by James A. Michener
James A. Michener Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from James A. Michener on Wise Famous Quotes.
Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today because if you enjoy it today, you can do it again tomorrow.
It was his opinion that a man had to wait until he was dead to know the meaning of God, unless he happened to have known the sea in his youth.
Wherever a human being goes, there is a challenge. Be the best man you can, and your gods will look with favor upon you.
I doubt, dearest child, that you could ever marry a Frenchman. They're not dependable. I've never believed that they're serious Catholics." He
I've spent my life trying to be better than I was, and I am a brother to all who share the same aspiration.
I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains.
If I were a young man, I would not hesitate at writing anything to get into print, except pornography.
On 24 October 1944 Planet Earth was following its orbit about the sun as it has obediently done for nearly five billion years.
With my pen I have engraved warrants of citizenship in the most remote corners, for truly the world has been my home.
I do believe that everyone growing up faces differential opportunities. With me, it was books and travel and some good teachers.
My principal flowers will be trees. Because when you plant trees, you're entitled to believe you'll live forever. So
America is a nation with many flaws, but hopes so vast that only the cowardly would refuse to acknowledge them.
For this is the journey that men and women make, to find themselves. If they fail in this, it doesn't matter much else what they find.
If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion, and avoid the people, you might better stay home.
If your book doesn't keep you up nights when you are writing it, it won't keep anyone up nights reading it.
I live for the few minutes I can talk with a sensible human being, but every time I do, I feel worse than before.
It may seem contradictory, but in the languid tropics one spends more time contemplating those great good things of sound and sight and smell.
At last he found the branching stream that flowed down from Blue Valley, and now he was guided by the little stone beaver that climbed the cliff.
To travel across Spain and finally to reach Barcelona is like drinking a respectable red wine and finishing up with a bottle of champagne.
Many people who want to be writers don't really want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print.
The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.
(I)f you did not read when you were young, you might never catch the disease and then what would be the use of living?
The really great writers are people like Emily Bronte who sit in a room and write out of their limited experience and unlimited imagination.
A soldier lives always for the next battle, because he knows that before it arrives impossible changes can occur in his favor.
Animals form an inalienable fragment of nature, and if we hasten the disappearance of even one species, we diminish our world and our place in it.
For of this world one never sees enough and to dine in harmony with nature is one of the gentlest and loveliest things we can do.
Human affairs are not so happily arranged that the best things please the most men. It is the proof of a bad cause when it is applauded by the mob.
This is the greatest evil that grows out of a wrong act. Somebody always remembers it ... in an evil way.
It was the silent time before dawn, along the shores of what had been one of the most beautiful lakes in southern Africa.
When men ignite in their hearts a religious fury, they inflict at the same time a blindness on their eyes.
For this is the journey that men make, to find themselves. If they fail in this, it doesn't matter much what else they find.
I have only one bit of advice to beginning writers: be sure your novel is read by Rodgers and Hammerstein.