It takes courage to know when you ought to be afraid. James A. Michener More Quotes by James A. Michener More Quotes From James A. Michener 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. James A. Michener want writing world I am always interested in why young people become writers, and from talking with many I have concluded that most do not want to be writers working eight and ten hours a day and accomplishing little; they want to have been writers, garnering the rewards of having completed a best-seller. They aspire to the rewards of writing but not to the travail. James A. Michener eight writing talking We are never prepared for what we expect. James A. Michener hmmm prepared preparation 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 James A. Michener ocean sea character Only another writer, someone who had worked his heart out on a good book which sold three thousand copies, could appreciate the thrill that overcame me one April morning in 1973 when Dean Rivers of our small college in Georgia appeared at my classroom door James A. Michener heart morning book 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. James A. Michener eight writing men The dead are dead but they rely on us to fulfill their hopes. James A. Michener rely ...when men ignite in their hearts a religious fury, they inflict at the same time a blindness on their eyes. James A. Michener eye religious heart I would suppose I learned how to write when I was very young indeed. When I read a child's book about the Trojan War and decided that the Greeks were really a bunch of frauds with their tricky horses and the terrible things they did, stealing one another's wives, and so on, so at that very early age, I re-wrote the ending of the Iliad so that the Trojans won. And boy, Achilles and Ajax got what they wanted, believe me. And thereafter, at frequent intervals, I would write something. It was really quite extraordinary. Never of very high merit, but the daringness of it was. James A. Michener horse war children . . . Luddites were those frenzied traditionalists of the early 19th century who toured [England] wrecking new weaving machines on the theory that if they were destroyed . . . old jobs and old ways of life could be preserved . . . At certain times in his life each man is tempted to become a Luddite, for there is always something he would like to go back to. But to be against all change-against change in the abstract-is folly. James A. Michener jobs men life I thought that perhaps the most creative mix for a society would be nine parts solid worker from institutions like MIT to one part poet from Marrakech, but in spite of the fact that I myself had been trained to be one of the solid workers, which meant that all of my sympathies lay with that group, I would not surrender the poet. The problem was to find him. James A. Michener groups creative would-be For this is the journey that men and women make, to find themselves. If they fail in this, it doesn't matter much else what they find. James A. Michener journey matter men I've spent my life trying to be better than I was, and I am a brother to all who share the same aspiration. James A. Michener brother share trying I think young people ought to seek the experience that is going to knock them off center. James A. Michener young people thinking The decent thing to do is to get rid of some of this money. James A. Michener decent things-to-do 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. James A. Michener atheism religious men I had learned volleyball in the Navy, where all the captains and admirals wanted to be spikers, and I found then that a man who can subdue his own desires and master the art of serving others can make himself invaluable. In choosing sides the team captain always chose the good spikers on the first and second choice, but then the spikers would grab his arm and whisper, 'Take Michener.' I was never chosen lower than third, because I was needed. I wasn't good, but I was faithful. James A. Michener volleyball sports art I wish I could tell you about the South Pacific. The way it actually was. The endless ocean. The infinite specks of coral we called islands. Coconut palms nodding gracefully toward the ocean. Reefs upon which waves broke into spray, and inner lagoons, lovely beyond description. I wish I could tell you about the sweating jungle, the full moon rising behind the volcanoes, and the waiting. The waiting. The timeless, repetitive waiting. James A. Michener ocean moon islands You write that first draft really to see how it's going to come out. James A. Michener writing firsts For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, what you northerners never appreciate...is that Texas is so big that you can live your life within its limits and never give a damn about what anyone in Boston or San Francisco thinks. James A. Michener boston texas thinking
