Quote

You write that first draft really to see how it's going to come out.

James A. Michener

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

James A. Michener
Age: 90 †
Born: 1907
Born: February 3
Died: 1997
Died: October 16
Author
Autobiographer
Military Officer
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
New York City
New York
James Albert Michener
James Michener
Writing
Going
Really
Draft
Write
Firsts
Come
First

More quotes by James A. Michener

Image
The dead are dead but they rely on us to fulfill their hopes.
James A. Michener
Image
About a billion years ago, long before the continents had separated to define the ancient oceans, or their own outlines had been determined, a small protuberance jutted out from the northwest corner of what would later become North America.
James A. Michener
Image
If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life.
James A. Michener
Image
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
Image
...when men ignite in their hearts a religious fury, they inflict at the same time a blindness on their eyes.
James A. Michener
Image
I am always interested in why young people become writers, and from talking with many I have concluded that most do not want to be writers working eight and ten hours a day and accomplishing little they want to have been writers, garnering the rewards of having completed a best-seller. They aspire to the rewards of writing but not to the travail.
James A. Michener
Image
Things are going to go wrong, and I think we are false to life if we don’t portray it. But there is also the hope that some lucky clown is going to come along and stumble into the gold mine. And I think you are also entitled to hold out that hope.
James A. Michener
Image
There are no insoluble problems. Only time-consuming ones.
James A. Michener
Image
For this is the journey that men and women make, to find themselves. If they fail in this, it doesn't matter much else what they find.
James A. Michener
Image
A nation becomes what its young people read in their youth. Its ideals are fashioned then, its goals strongly determined.
James A. Michener
Image
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
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 else does is of no concern whatever except as an interesting variation.
James A. Michener
Image
The chief character in this narrative is the Caribbean Sea, one of the world's most alluring bodies of water, a rare gem among the oceans, defined by the islands that form a chain of lovely jewels to the north and east
James A. Michener
Image
The really great writers are people like Emily Brontë who sit in a room and write out of their limited experience and unlimited imagination.
James A. Michener
Image
All I can do is play the game the way the cards fall.
James A. Michener
Image
I've spent my life trying to be better than I was, and I am a brother to all who share the same aspiration.
James A. Michener
Image
Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.
James A. Michener
Image
In six pages, I can't even say Hello.
James A. Michener
Image
The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.
James A. Michener
Image
[The church's] job is to provide permanent solace and spiritual leadership to the people as a whole, whatever their government at the moment, so long as it stays within the bounds of moral decency.
James A. Michener