Top 150 James A. Michener Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both.”

— James A. Michener

2. “Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today because if you enjoy it today, you can do it again tomorrow.”

— James A. Michener

3. “Scientists dream about doing great things. Engineers do them.”

— James A. Michener

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

— James A. Michener

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

— James A. Michener

6. “If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.”

— James A. Michener

7. “We are never prepared for what we expect.”

— James A. Michener

8. “I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.”

— James A. Michener

9. “A nation becomes what its young people read in their youth. Its ideals are fashioned then, its goals strongly determined.”

— James A. Michener

10. “An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.”

— James A. Michener

11. “If your book doesn’t keep you up nights when you are writing it, it won’t keep anyone up nights reading it.”

— James A. Michener

12. “I do believe that everyone growing up faces differential opportunities. With me, it was books and travel and some good teachers.”

— James A. Michener

13. “Never forget, son, when you represent Texas, always go first class.”

— James A. Michener

14. “If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life.”

— James A. Michener

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

— James A. Michener

16. “The dead are dead but they rely on us to fulfill their hopes.”

— James A. Michener

17. “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

18. “A man is never old if he can still be moved emotionally by a woman of his own age.”

— James A. Michener

19. “America is a nation with many flaws, but hopes so vast that only the cowardly would refuse to acknowledge them.”

— James A. Michener

20. “There are no insoluble problems. Only time-consuming ones.”

— James A. Michener

21. “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

22. “When I was a child in the Navy during World War II, I was perennially grateful to the armed services libraries for having on hand a good supply of those pocket books, which were so common in that period. I must have read a couple hundred of them, and they did a lot to save my sanity.”

— James A. Michener

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

— James A. Michener

24. “The job of a storyteller is to tell stories, and I have concentrated on that obligation.”

— James A. Michener

25. “Rampaging horsemen can conquer; only the city can civilize.”

— James A. Michener

26. “The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.”

— James A. Michener

27. “No invader has ever conquered the heart of Poland, that spirit which is the inheritance of sons and daughters, the private passion of families and the ancient, unbreakable tie to all those who came before.”

— James A. Michener

28. “Other things being roughly equal, that man lives most keenly who lives in closest harmony with nature. To be wholly alive a man must know storms, he must feel the ocean as his home or the air as his habitation. He must smell the things of earth, hear the sounds of living things and taste the rich abundance of the soil and sea.”

— James A. Michener

29. “On 24 October 1944 Planet Earth was following its orbit about the sun as it has obediently done for nearly five billion years.”

— James A. Michener

30. “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

31. “Alaska did not produce supermen, but in its formative periods it was served by men of character and determination, and it is a fortunate land which knows such public servants.”

— James A. Michener

32. “In peace sons bury their fathers; in war fathers bury their sons.”

— James A. Michener

33. “The sense of belonging is one of the great gifts men get in battle.”

— James A. Michener

34. “I think the bottom line is that if you get through a childhood like mine, it’s not at all bad. Obviously, you come out a pretty tough turkey, and you have had all the inoculations you need to keep you on a level keel for the rest of your life. The sad part is, most of us don’t come out.”

— James A. Michener

35. “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

36. “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.”

— James A. Michener

37. “It takes courage to know when you ought to be afraid.”

— James A. Michener

38. “It heartens me to think of Verdi who composed thundering operas in his eighties; Michelangelo who did fine work in his ninetieth year, and Titian, who painted better than ever in his one hundredth.”

— James A. Michener

39. “Things are going to go wrong, and I think we are false to life if we don’t portray it. But there is also the hope that some lucky clown is going to come along and stumble into the gold mine. And I think you are also entitled to hold out that hope.”

— James A. Michener

40. “When this is over, I’m not going to be the same guy. I’m going to live as if I were a great man.”

— James A. Michener

41. “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

42. “Writers turn dreams into print.”

— James A. Michener

43. “Animals form an inalienable fragment of nature, and if we hasten the disappearance of even one species, we diminish our world and our place in it.”

— James A. Michener

44. “First buy a cowboy hat and boots. Then you’re on your way to being a Texan.”

— James A. Michener

45. “Always remember, John, that you and I live on a minor planet attached to a minor star, at the far edge of a minor galaxy. We live here briefly, and when we’re gone, we’re forgotten. And one day the galaxies will be gone, too. The only morality that makes sense is to do something useful with the brief time we’re allotted.”

— James A. Michener

46. “The South Pacific is not a paradise, in the sense that Eden wasn’t either. There are always apples and snakes. But it is a wonderful place to live. The green vales of Tahiti, the hills of Guadalcanal, the towering peaks about Wau, and the noonday brilliance of Rabaul have enchanted many white travelers who have stayed on for many years and built happy lives. Often on a cool night when the beer was plentiful and the stories alluring, we have envied the men and women of the South Pacific.”

— James A. Michener

47. “Denali, the glory of Alaska, soars to more than twenty thousand and is one of the most compelling mountains in the Americas.”

— James A. Michener

48. “In later years, it would become fashionable to say of the missionaries, “They came to the islands to do good, and they did right well.” Others made jest of the missionary slogan, “They came to a nation in darkness; they left it in light,” by pointing out: “Of course they left Hawaii lighter. They stole every goddamned thing that wasn’t nailed down.”

— James A. Michener

49. “The South Pacific is memorable because when you are in the islands you simply cannot ignore nature. You cannot avoid looking up at the stars, large as apples on a new tree. You cannot deafen your ear to the thunder of the surf. The bright sands, the screaming birds, and the wild winds are always with you.”

— James A. Michener

50. “A lot of nonsense is spoken about work. Some of the finest men I’ve known were the laziest. Never work because it’s expected of you. Find out how much work you must do to live and be happy. Don’t do any more.”

— James A. Michener