Quotes by James A. Michener

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

“We seek God so earnestly, Eliav reflected, not to find Him but to discover ourselves.”

“I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.”

“I am a humanist because I think humanity can, with constant moral guidance, create reasonably decent societies. I think that young people who want to understand the world can profit from the works ...”

“It took her three seconds-one, two, three-to know that her destiny required her to join this man, and his gun and his wagon, and his waiting horses. She had no conception of what was being asked of...”

“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 w...”

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

“Over a hundred German scientists arrived here [Huntsville] at eleven oclock on an April morning and by nightfall more than sixty had applied for cards at the free library.”

“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.”

“To travel across Spain and finally to reach Barcelona is like drinking a respectable red wine and finishing up with a bottle of champagne.”

“The South Pacific is memorable because when you are in the islands you simply cannot ignore nature. You cannot avoid looking up at the stars, large as apples on a new tree. You cannot deafen your e...”

“At times, working in big cities far from nature, I have been sick with nesomania, and I think the reason is this: On the islands one has both the time and the inclination to communicate with the st...”

“The South Pacific is not a paradise, in the sense that Eden wasn't either. There are always apples and snakes. But it is a wonderful place to live. The green vales of Tahiti, the hills of Guadalcan...”

“What did I learn in my travels? In whatever foreign country I visited I met dreamers who longed to reach America and its promise of an enriched life so I knew we had a country rich in opportunity, ...”

“With my pen I have engraved warrants of citizenship in the most remote corners, for truly the world has been my home.”

“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. The...”

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

“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 ...”

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

“Writers turn dreams into print.”