Quotes from James Clavell

Vietnam's going to be a big problem for your government unless it's very smart." Bartlett said confidently, "Thank God it is. JFK handled Cuba. He'll handle Vietnam too. He made the Big K back off there and he can do it again. We won that time. The Soviets took their missiles out.

I think the Soviets have deliberately enticed you into Vietnam. You'll send in troops but they won't. You'll be fighting Viets and the jungle, and the Soviets will be the winners. Your CIA's already there in strength. They're running an airline. Even now airfields are being constructed with U.S. money, U.S. arms are pouring in. You've soldiers fighting there already.

But generally there's good in evil people and evil in good people. You must choose the good and get rid of the evil without sacrificing the good. There's no waste in my domains to be cast away lightly.

There are seven emotions, neh? Joy, anger, anxiety, adoration, grief, fear, and hate. If a man doesn't give way to these, he's patient. I'm not as strong as I might be but I'm patient.

What about bushido? the ghosts of his ancestors had always asked him. What about bushido? he had always asked them back. They had never answered.

As to Vietnam, no one here thinks President Kennedy can handle that either, much as we admire him personally.

By historic custom only the descendants of the sprawling, ancient, semi-divine families of the Minowara, Takashima, and Fujimoto were entitled to the rank of Shogun.

I've set myself against the sea all my life and I've always won. I always will.

They're devils who pretend to serve the Church and Christ, but they serve only themselves. They lust for power, power at any cost. They hide behind a net of poverty and piousness, but underneath, they feed like kings and amass fortunes.

I really don't understand them, the capitalists. They delude themselves. We're openly committed to consume them but they give us the means to do it.

Why should we fight them when their own greed and stupidity's destroying them. Eh?

What was his death poem?" Omi said: "What are clouds But an excuse for the sky? What is life But an escape from death?' " Toranaga smiled. "Interesting.

Ladies born in Year of Horse, with the fire sign, are thought to be . . . unlucky.

Only a real man has the right to stand at the pinnacle.

he's a maggot-eaten fool and we'll be dead because of him.

There can only be one Tai-Pan.

why swear at him, even to yourself? He hasn't sworn at you. Swearing's for the weak, or for fools. Isn't it?

Isn't it only through laughter that we become one with the gods and thus can endure life and can overcome all the horror and waste and suffering here on earth? Like tonight, watching all those brave men meet their fate here, on this shore, on this gentle night, through a karma ordained a thousand lifetimes ago, or perhaps even one. Isn't it only through laughter we can stay human?

Without terror how can the few rule the many?

It's the brandy, Pilot, that an' fornication an' the saintly life I've led.

he still remembered their cries for help in God's name. But God had turned His face from those men that day, so they had perished

Only merchants have money to waste, and what are they but parasites who create nothing, grow nothing, make nothing but feed off another's labor? Definitely they should all walk, neh? In this we are very wise.

It's vast to be alive," he said happily. "I can almost hear the rain waiting to be born.

the motor industry, because of its countless allied industries, being the core of any capitalist society.