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In six pages, I can't even say Hello.
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
Even
Hello
Six
Pages
Writing
More quotes by James A. Michener
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
Although most of us know Vincent van Gogh in Arles and Paul Gauguin in Tahiti as if they were neighbors -- somewhat disreputable but endlessly fascinating -- none of us can name two French generals or department store owners of that period. I take enormous pride in considering myself an artist, one of the necessaries.
James A. Michener
Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.
James A. Michener
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.
James A. Michener
America is a nation with many flaws, but hopes so vast that only the cowardly would refuse to acknowledge them.
James A. Michener
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
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
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
I had been educated with free scholarships. I went to nine different universities, always at public expense, and when you have that experience, you are almost obligated to give it back. It's as simple as that.
James A. Michener
I am terrified of restrictive religious doctrine, having learned from history that when men who adhere to any form of it are in control, common men like me are in peril.
James A. Michener
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
If I were a young man, I would not hesitate at writing anything to get into print, except pornography.
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 determined, a small protuberance jutted out from the northwest corner of what would later become North America.
James A. Michener
You write that first draft really to see how it's going to come out.
James A. Michener
The job of a storyteller is to tell stories, and I have concentrated on that obligation.
James A. Michener
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
Religious hatreds ought not to be propagated at all, but certainly not on a tax-exempt basis.
James A. Michener
The decent thing to do is to get rid of some of this money.
James A. Michener
...when men ignite in their hearts a religious fury, they inflict at the same time a blindness on their eyes.
James A. Michener
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
