James A. Michener Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• I had learned volleyball in the Navy, where all the captains and admirals wanted to be spikers, and I found then that a man who can subdue his own desires and master the art of serving others can make himself invaluable. In choosing sides the team captain always chose the good spikers on the first and second choice, but then the spikers would grab his arm and whisper, 'Take Michener.' I was never chosen lower than third, because I was needed. I wasn't good, but I was faithful.

  James A. Michener

  Sports, Volleyball, Art

  James A. Michener (2014). “Sports in America”, p.601, Dial Press

  6 Copy quote

• For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, what you northerners never appreciate...is that Texas is so big that you can live your life within its limits and never give a damn about what anyone in Boston or San Francisco thinks.

  James A. Michener

  Thinking, Texas, Boston

  7 Copy quote

• As a younger man I wrote for eight years without ever earning a nickel which is a long apprenticeship, but in that time I learned a lot about my trade.

  James A. Michener

  Writing, Men, Eight

  5 Copy quote

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

  James A. Michener

  Soldier, Battle, Favors

  James A. Michener (2014). “Poland: A Novel”, p.75, Dial Press

  10 Copy quote

• Rampaging horsemen can conquer; only the city can civilize.

  James A. Michener

  Cities, Conquer, Horsemen

  James A. Michener (2014). “Poland: A Novel”, p.84, Dial Press

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  12 Copy quote

• Public libraries have been a mainstay of my life. They represent an individual's right to acquire knowledge; they are the sinews that bind civilized societies the world over. Without libraries, I would be a pauper, intellectually and spiritually.

  James A. Michener

  Library, Would Be, World

  10 Copy quote

• We should be most careful about retreating from the specific challenge of our age. We should be reluctant to turn our back upon the frontier of this epoch... We cannot be indifferent to space, because the grand slow march of our intelligence has brought us, in our generation, to a point from which we can explore and understand and utilize it. To turn back now would be to deny our history, our capabilities.

  James A. Michener

  Space, Our Generation, Challenges

  5 Copy quote

• I think young people ought to seek that differential experience that is going to knock them off dead center. I was a typical American school boy. I happened to get straight A's and be pretty good in sports. But I had no great vision of what I could be. And I never had any yearning.

  James A. Michener

  Sports, School, Boys

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

  4 Copy quote

• We risk great peril if we kill off this spirit of adventure, for we cannot predict how and in what seemingly unrelated fields it will manifest itself. A nation that loses its forward thrust is in danger, and one of the most effective ways to retain that thrust is to keep exploring possibilities. The sense of exploration is intimately bound up with human resolve, and for a nation to believe that it is still committed to a forward motion is to ensure its continuance.

  James A. Michener

  Future, Believe, Adventure

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• As a writer I have persisted in my uncertainty, alternating between novels which could charitably be considered literature and world reporting which by another stretch of objective standards might be called history.

  James A. Michener

  Literature, World, Might

  4 Copy quote

• It is difficult to be king when the gods are changing.

  James A. Michener

  Kings, Difficult

  James A. Michener (2013). “Hawaii: A Novel”, p.62, Dial Press

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• I wondered how a man ever got an English girl into bed. What did they do with her hockey stick?

  James A. Michener

  Girl, Hockey, Men

  James A. Michener (2014). “Caravans: A Novel of Afghanistan”, p.72, Dial Press

  5 Copy quote

• I thought that perhaps the most creative mix for a society would be nine parts solid worker from institutions like MIT to one part poet from Marrakech, but in spite of the fact that I myself had been trained to be one of the solid workers, which meant that all of my sympathies lay with that group, I would not surrender the poet. The problem was to find him.

  James A. Michener

  Creative, Groups, Would Be

  12 Copy quote

• 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.

  6 Copy quote

• A writer can make a fortune in America, but he can't make a living.

  James A. Michener

  America, Fortune

  4 Copy quote

• I think the bottom line is that if you get through a childhood like mine, it's not at all bad. Obviously, you come out a pretty tough turkey, and you have had all the inoculations you need to keep you on a level keel for the rest of your life. The sad part is, most of us don't come out.

  James A. Michener

  Thinking, Turkeys, Childhood

  4 Copy quote

• Never forget, son, when you represent Texas, always go first class.

  James A. Michener

  Son, Texas, Class

  James A. Michener (2014). “Texas: A Novel”, p.1685, Dial Press

  4 Copy quote

• First buy a cowboy hat and boots. Then you're on your way to being a Texan.

  James A. Michener

  Cowboy, Boots, Way

  4 Copy quote

• If a young aspirant had a modicum of skill and a busy typewriter she or he would sooner or later get a foothold in one of the magazines and a leaping start on the ladder upward.

  James A. Michener

  Writing, Typewriters, Skills

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  5 Copy quote

• Millions upon millions of years ago, when the continents were already formed and the principal features of the earth had been decided, there existed, then as now, one aspect of the world that dwarfed all other ... a mighty ocean, resting uneasily to the east of the largest continent, a restless ever-changing, gigantic body of water that would later be described as Pacific.

  James A. Michener

  Ocean, Years, Water

  James A. Michener (2013). “Hawaii: A Novel”, p.19, Dial Press

  4 Copy quote

Page 3 of 5

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin