James A. Michener Quotes About Books

Quotes about: Books

• If your book doesn't keep you up nights when you are writing it, it won't keep anyone up nights reading it.

  James A. Michener

  Book, Reading, Writing

• When I was a child in the Navy during World War II, I was perennially grateful to the armed services libraries for having on hand a good supply of those pocket books, which were so common in that period. I must have read a couple hundred of them, and they did a lot to save my sanity.

  James A. Michener

  Children, Couple, War

• 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 don't want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print. They don't want to go through the work of getting the damn book out. There is a huge difference.

  James A. Michener

  Book, Writing, Self

• Only another writer, someone who had worked his heart out on a good book which sold three thousand copies, could appreciate the thrill that overcame me one April morning in 1973 when Dean Rivers of our small college in Georgia appeared at my classroom door

  James A. Michener

  Morning, Book, Heart

  James A. Michener (2013). “Hawaii: A Novel”, p.1333, Dial Press

• You don't fight to protect warships or old men. Like the book says, you fight to save your civilization. And so often it seems that civilization is composed mainly of the things women and children want.

  James A. Michener

  Children, Book, Fighting

  James A. Michener (2014). “The Bridges at Toko-Ri: A Novel”, p.42, Dial Press

• I do believe that everyone growing up faces differential opportunities. With me, it was books and travel and some good teachers.

  James A. Michener

  Teacher, Growing Up, Believe

  "Storytelling Phenomenon". Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. January 10, 1991.

• I would suppose I learned how to write when I was very young indeed. When I read a child's book about the Trojan War and decided that the Greeks were really a bunch of frauds with their tricky horses and the terrible things they did, stealing one another's wives, and so on, so at that very early age, I re-wrote the ending of the Iliad so that the Trojans won. And boy, Achilles and Ajax got what they wanted, believe me. And thereafter, at frequent intervals, I would write something. It was really quite extraordinary. Never of very high merit, but the daringness of it was.

  James A. Michener

  Horse, Children, War

  "Storytelling Phenomenon". The Academy of Achievement interview, www.achievement.org. January 10, 1991.

• Not too many people work in a job where, waiting out there are three or four hundred people who are paid to tear apart what you've done. And often they are brighter than you are, or they know more about the subject than you do, or they wish they had written a book themselves, or done a lot better. Or they just don't like it! And you have to live with it.

  James A. Michener

  Jobs, Book, People

  Academy of Achievement Interview in St. Petersburg, Florida, January 10, 1991.

• Contrary to what people think, I slave over my books.

  James A. Michener

  Book, Thinking, People

• 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.

  James A. Michener

  Book, People, Wish

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