I think young people ought to seek that differential experience that is going to knock them off dead center. I was a… — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
You have to be eligible for luck to strike, and I think that's a matter of education and preparation, and character and… — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
[The church's] job is to provide permanent solace and spiritual leadership to the people as a whole, whatever their government at the… — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Many people who want to be writers don't really want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they… — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
I was born to a woman I never knew and raised by another who took in orphans. I do not know my… — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
I was once asked if I'd like to meet the president of a certain country. I said, "No, but I'd love to… — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it. — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
I am a humanist because I think humanity can, with constant moral guidance, create reasonably decent societies. I think that young people… — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
I am always interested in why young people become writers, and from talking with many I have concluded that most do not… — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
A nation becomes what its young people read in their youth. Its ideals are fashioned then, its goals strongly determined. — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
I think young people ought to seek the experience that is going to knock them off center. — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
Not too many people work in a job where, waiting out there are three or four hundred people who are paid to… — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
“[Very rich people] with brains make a great effort to hold on to every penny they have while preaching to the general population that… — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
A writer can make a fortune in America, but he can't make a living. — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
As a writer I have persisted in my uncertainty, alternating between novels which could charitably be considered literature and world reporting which by another… — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
. . . Luddites were those frenzied traditionalists of the early 19th century who toured [England] wrecking new weaving machines on the theory that… — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
I am terrified of restrictive religious doctrine, having learned from history that when men who adhere to any form of it are in control,… — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
“This is not a promise, this is not threat, it's just the way it's gonna be!!!” — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
“We went into the night and for the first time in my life I saw the stars hanging low over the desert, for the… — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
The rules seem to be these: If you have written a successful novel, everyone invites you to write short stories. If you have written… — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
“A Roman came to Rabbi Gimzo the Water Carrier, and asked, "What is this study of the law that you Jews engage in?" and… — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
I think the crucial thing in the writing career is to find what you want to do and how you fit in. What somebody… — James A. Michener Copy Share Image
“The chance emergence of the was nothing. Remember this. But its persistence and patient accumulation of stature were everything. Only by relentless effort did… — James A. Michener Copy Share Image