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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.

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
Things
Second
Never
Ways
Men
Child
Two
Firsts
Sees
First
Saws
Children
Poet
Way
Dying

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Rampaging horsemen can conquer only the city can civilize.
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I think young people ought to seek that differential experience that is going to knock them off dead center. I was a typical American school boy. I happened to get straight A's and be pretty good in sports. But I had no great vision of what I could be. And I never had any yearning.
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I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains.
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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.
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The job of a storyteller is to tell stories, and I have concentrated on that obligation.
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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.
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The decent thing to do is to get rid of some of this money.
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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.
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No man leaves where he is and seeks a distant place unless he is in some respect a failure.
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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
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A writer can make a fortune in America, but he can't make a living.
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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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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.
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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.
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America is a nation with many flaws, but hopes so vast that only the cowardly would refuse to acknowledge them.
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The really great writers are people like Emily Brontë who sit in a room and write out of their limited experience and unlimited imagination.
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The arrogance of the artist is a very profound thing, and it fortifies you.
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A nation becomes what its young people read in their youth. Its ideals are fashioned then, its goals strongly determined.
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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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