Quote

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.

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
Country
Drivers
Love
Farmers
Like
Meet
People
Asked
Interesting
President
Often
Certain
Taxi

More quotes by James A. Michener

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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.
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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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The extreme geniality of San Francisco's economic, intellectual and political climate makes it the most varied and challenging city in the United States.
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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
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If I were a young man, I would not hesitate at writing anything to get into print, except pornography.
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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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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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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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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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a soldier lives always for the next battle, because he knows that before it arrives impossible changes can occur in his favor.
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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.
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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
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It is difficult to be king when the gods are changing.
James A. Michener
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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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Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.
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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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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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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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An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.
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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