James A. Michener

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

“Most artists are brought to their vocation when their own nascent gifts are awakened by the work of a master.”

“Scientists dream about doing great things. Engineers do them.”

“For this is the journey that men make: to find themselves. If they fail in this, it doesn't much matter what else they find.”

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

“An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.”

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

“The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.”

“I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that should read one of my first drafts. But I'm one of the world's great rewriters.”

“The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.”

“Be a good man. You will make a difference.”

“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion.”

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

“Sailors, with their built-in sense of order, service and discipline, should really be running the world.”

“A nation, like a person, has a mind—a mind that must be kept informed and alert, that must know itself, that understands the hopes and needs of its neighbors.”