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Only by living at the edge of death can you understand the indescribable joy of life - Shogun.

James Clavell

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James Clavell
Age: 72 †
Born: 1921
Born: October 10
Died: 1994
Died: September 6
Film Director
Film Producer
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Sydney
NSW
Charles Edmund Dumaresq Clavell
Charles Edmund Dumaresq du Clavelle
Life
Shoguns
Indescribable
Edge
Edges
Joy
Understand
Living
Death
Shogun

More quotes by James Clavell

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Changi became my university instead of my prison. Among the inmates there were experts in all walks of life - the high and the low roads. I studied and absorbed everything I could from physics to counterfeiting, but most of all I learned the art of surviving.
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I write short stories. They may appear big in size, but when you consider it, they're four or five novels in one... In return for picking up one of my books, I'm trying to give them value for their money... the goal of writing any book is to create the illusion that what you are reading is reality and you're part of it.
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The more I know, the more sure I am I know so little. The eternal paradox.
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God gives us intelligence to uncover the wonders of nature. Without the gift, nothing is possible.
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How beautiful life is and how sad! How fleeting, with no past and no future, only a limitless now.
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Isn't man but a blossom taken by wind, and only the mountains and the sea and the stars and this land of the gods everlasting?
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What are clouds, but an excuse for the sky? What is life, but an escape from death?
James Clavell
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Wars are fought by teenagers, you realize that. They really ought to be fought by the politicians and old people who start these wars.
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You've commited murder just as much as Helene did. You killed a fly with a human head. She killed a human with a fly head.
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What you do with strangers is ignore them for. No second chance, no sorry I did it, never accept an apology, but never, ever get angry with strangers.
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You never know . . . that's what makes life interesting.
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So much of 'normal, civilized' life is bull that you can't imagine... What frightens you, doesn't frighten me, what frightens me, you'd laugh at.
James Clavell
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Of what real value is a title? The power is the only important thing
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The scarcity of years does not necessitate lack of wisdom.
James Clavell
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Isn't it only laughter we can stay human?
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Anger is one of the most intimate of emotions and to expose it to strangers is one of the most stupid and sickening things to do. Never get angry with strangers because they are strangers.
James Clavell
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How can a man be so brave and so stupid, so gentle and so cruel, so warming and so detestable -- all at the same time?
James Clavell
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Anger is something you should only vent in front of intimates, and friends and relations. Never be angry in front of strangers because you lose face.
James Clavell
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Life and death are the same...Leave karma to karma.
James Clavell
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.., by universal custom, your enemy is never more polite than when he is planning or has planned your destruction.
James Clavell