James A. Michener

I never wrote anything that was published until I was forty.

— James A. Michener

“when the moderates were driven out, the radicals moved in,”

— James A. Michener

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.

— James A. Michener

Honest to God, I do all the research on these books myself.

— James A. Michener

The dead are dead but they rely on us to fulfill their hopes.

— James A. Michener

In six pages, I can't even say "Hello.

— James A. Michener

“dinner celebrating the patron saint of”

— James A. Michener

“Only the rocks live forever, Gray Wolf said.”

— James A. Michener

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

— James A. Michener

“Women like her looked at their world, rolled up their sleeves, and tried to make it better. Now”

— James A. Michener

Whatever I did, there was always someone around who was better qualified. They just didn't bother to do it.

— James A. Michener

Religious hatreds ought not to be propagated at all, but certainly not on a tax-exempt basis.

— James A. Michener

“Wrong decisions, Jakob, are never inevitable. A wise man can always turn back from a precipice.”

— James A. Michener

“Don't put off what you can do today because if you enjoy it today you can do it again tomorrow.”

— James A. Michener

“A sensible man never brags about two things. How lovable his first wife was and how good his last school was.”

— James A. Michener

“Most important fact of war? Keep your army in existence. Lose the battle, but keep your eye on winning the war.” But”

— James A. Michener

Things are going to go wrong, and I think we are false to life if we don’t portray it. But there is…

— James A. Michener

About a billion years ago, long before the continents had separated to define the ancient oceans, or their own outlines had been…

— James A. Michener

Public libraries have been a mainstay of my life. They represent an individual's right to acquire knowledge; they are the sinews that…

— James A. Michener

“There will never be rebellion here. In Richmond and Williamsburg there has been talk. Jefferson isn’t reliable and Patrick Henry is a…

— James A. Michener

When I first pitched my Navy tent on the island of Espiritu Santo to the north of Vila, the natives on nearby…

— James A. Michener

“I have often been mildly amused when I think that the great American novel was not written about New England or Chicago.…

— James A. Michener

The really great writers are people like Emily Bront� who sit in a room and write out of their limited experience and…

— James A. Michener

In a small Polish farm community, during the fall planting season of 1981, events occurred which electrified the world, sending reverberations of…

— James A. Michener

“The South Pacific is memorable because when you are in the islands you simply cannot ignore nature. You cannot avoid looking up…

— James A. Michener

“The traveler wishing to observe Islamic Spain has his choice of two cities, Granada with its Alhambra or Córdoba with its Great…

— James A. Michener

Although most of us know Vincent van Gogh in Arles and Paul Gauguin in Tahiti as if they were neighbors -- somewhat…

— James A. Michener

I feel myself the inheritor of a great background of people. Just who, precisely, they were, I have never known. I might…

— James A. Michener

When I was a child in the Navy during World War II, I was perennially grateful to the armed services libraries for…

— James A. Michener

“It took her three seconds-one, two, three-to know that her destiny required her to join this man, and his gun and his…

— James A. Michener

I think the bottom line is that if you get through a childhood like mine, it's not at all bad. Obviously, you…

— James A. Michener

“Why were these people seeking a new home coming to Israel and not to America? Where had the American dream faltered? And…

— James A. Michener

“I claimed that originally Afghanistan knew the freedom of the caravan, but that willfully the people put themselves in these village prisons…

— James A. Michener

“In these centuries when God,...was forging a Christian church so that it might fulfill the longing of a hungry world, He was…

— James A. Michener

“But now, as autumn approached with an occasional cold day warning of winter, he began to ponder seriously the matter of establishing…

— James A. Michener

“He then proceeded to expound the concept that had become a fixation with him: “Thee must acknowledge that Jesus Christ was himself…

— James A. Michener

“The constable said, “Just time enough for the scars to heal, so that I can whip them open again.” He thought of…

— James A. Michener

I would suppose I learned how to write when I was very young indeed. When I read a child's book about the…

— James A. Michener

“We went into the night and for the first time in my life I saw the stars hanging low over the desert,…

— James A. Michener

“From the earliest days of the nation anyone with an intelligence equal to that of sparrows had realized that the peninsula ought…

— James A. Michener