Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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.
James A. Michener
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Ladders
Aspirant
Young
Sooner
Foothold
Writing
Skill
Modicum
Would
Magazines
Leaping
Busy
Typewriter
Later
Typewriters
Upward
Skills
Ladder
Start
More quotes by James A. Michener
The extreme geniality of San Francisco's economic, intellectual and political climate makes it the most varied and challenging city in the United States.
James A. Michener
The arrogance of the artist is a very profound thing, and it fortifies you.
James A. Michener
Being goal-oriented instead of self-oriented is crucial. I know so many people who want to be writers. But let me tell you, they really don't want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print. They don't want to go through the work of getting the damn book out. There is a huge difference.
James A. Michener
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
The decent thing to do is to get rid of some of this money.
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
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
When this is over, I'm not going to be the same guy. I am going to live as if I were a great man.
James A. Michener
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
A nation becomes what its young people read in their youth. Its ideals are fashioned then, its goals strongly determined.
James A. Michener
As a writer I have persisted in my uncertainty, alternating between novels which could charitably be considered literature and world reporting which by another stretch of objective standards might be called history.
James A. Michener
Animals form an inalienable fragment of nature, and if we hasten the disappearance of even one species, we diminish our world and our place in it.
James A. Michener
The sense of belonging is one of the great gifts men get in battle.
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
The dead are dead but they rely on us to fulfill their hopes.
James A. Michener
No man leaves where he is and seeks a distant place unless he is in some respect a failure.
James A. Michener
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.
James A. Michener
[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
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
You write that first draft really to see how it's going to come out.
James A. Michener
