Quotes from James A. Michener

There are no insoluble problems. Only time-consuming ones.

...when men ignite in their hearts a religious fury, they inflict at the same time a blindness on their eyes.

I'm just a guy up on a hill writing.

If you type adeptly with 10 fingers, you're typing faster than your mind is working.

As a younger man I wrote for eight years without ever earning a nickel which is a long apprenticeship, but in that time I learned a lot about my trade.

My work as a naval officer in World War II enabled me to serve on 49 different South Pacific islands so that I came to know the area about as well as anyone.

It was the silent time before dawn, along the shores of what had been one of the most beautiful lakes in southern Africa.

I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains.

Russia, France, Germany and China. They revere their writers. America is still a frontier country that almost shudders at the idea of creative expression.

The really great writers are people like Emily Bronte who sit in a room and write out of their limited experience and unlimited imagination.

I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.

I was a Navy officer writing about Navy problems and I simply stole this lovely Army nurse and popped her into a Navy uniform, where she has done very well for herself.

Honest to God, I do all the research on these books myself.

If I were a young man today, I might be lured into the moviemaking industry. You can really make a statement there.

A person on dialysis undergoes very heavy and irritating treatment, and in time, it seems more than you can bear.

I am the product of the American education system. It is a system that has always been on the lookout for bright boys and girls. It spotted me when I was 14, and I owe a tremendous debt to my alma mater.

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.

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.

Many people who want to be writers don't really want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print.

I attended seminars where many social issues were discussed abstractly, outside the pressures of an immediate situation, and there I developed certain attitudes which permitted me to face the real thing when it came along.

All I can do is play the game the way the cards fall.

If there was a turning point for me, it was 'The Bridges at Toko-Ri.' It is a very fine short novel. But it gave me very little satisfaction. Really. I decided I wasn't going to go down that avenue.

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.

You have to be eligible for luck to strike, and I think that's a matter of education and preparation, and character and all the other solid attributes that sometimes people laugh at.