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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.

James A. Michener

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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
Great
Reassurance
Writing
Writer
Wants
Good
Anyone
Never
Read
World
Thought
Firsts
First
Drafts

More quotes by James A. Michener

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It takes courage to know when you ought to be afraid.
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Writers turn dreams into print.
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All I can do is play the game the way the cards fall.
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No invader has ever conquered the heart of Poland, that spirit which is the inheritance of sons and daughters, the private passion of families and the ancient, unbreakable tie to all those who came before.
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The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.
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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.
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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.
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If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life.
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If a young aspirant had a modicum of skill and a busy typewriter she or he would sooner or later get a foothold in one of the magazines and a leaping start on the ladder upward.
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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.
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A poet sees things in two ways: First, as a child who never saw it before, and Second, as a dying man who will never see it again.
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There are no insoluble problems. Only time-consuming ones.
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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
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I don’t know who my parents were. I know nothing about my inheritance. I could be Jewish I could be part Negro I could be Irish I could be Russian. I am spiritually a mix anyway, but I did have a solid childhood fortunately, because of some wonderful women who brought me up. I never had a father or a man in the house, and that was a loss...
James A. Michener
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An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.
James A. Michener
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You don't fight to protect warships or old men. Like the book says, you fight to save your civilization. And so often it seems that civilization is composed mainly of the things women and children want.
James A. Michener
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In a small Polish farm community, during the fall planting season of 1981, events occurred which electrified the world, sending reverberations of magnitude to capitals as diverse as Washington, Peking and especially Moscow.
James A. Michener
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If your book doesn't keep you up nights when you are writing it, it won't keep anyone up nights reading it.
James A. Michener
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I was once asked if I'd like to meet the president of a certain country. I said, No, but I'd love to meet some sheepherders. The sheepherders, farmers and taxi drivers are often the most interesting people.
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I wondered how a man ever got an English girl into bed. What did they do with her hockey stick?
James A. Michener