Top 160 James Clavell Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “All comes to him who waits – and works.”

— James Clavell

52. “It’s good for a man to get drunk once in a while. It releases all the evil spirits.”

— James Clavell

53. “Without privacy, civilized life could not exist.”

— James Clavell

54. “What nonsense it all is! Catholic and Protestant and Calvinist and Lutherist and every other shitist.”

— James Clavell

55. “I prefer the mist that surrounds me. Yes, I don’t like a lot of what I see nowadays.”

— James Clavell

56. “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?”

— James Clavell

57. “Many times Blackthorne had looked over his shoulder expecting her there, but she was never there and never would be and this did not disturb him. She was with him forever, and he knew he would love her in the good times and in the tragic times, even in the winter of his life. She was always on the edge of his dreams.”

— James Clavell

58. “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.”

— James Clavell

59. “It is not wise to notice another man’s woman.”

— James Clavell

60. “I send you my laughter. May Buddha bless thee and thine.”

— James Clavell

61. “First the priests arrive. Then the conquistadores.”

— James Clavell

62. “It’s only Christian to be chivalrous to your enemies.”

— James Clavell

63. “Of what real value is a title? The power is the only important thing.”

— James Clavell

64. “Without trade the world will become what it was once – a hell where only the strongest arm and the heaviest lash was law. The meek will never inherit the earth. Aye, but at least they can be protected by law to live out their lives as they wish.”

— James Clavell

65. “Damn what you like, Pieterzoon. But don’t damn liquor. It’s the stuff of life!”

— James Clavell

66. “When the Dragons belch, all Hong Kong defecates.”

— James Clavell

67. “Godrot opium, he thought. But he knew that his life was inexorably tied to opium – and that without it neither The Noble House nor the British Empire could exist.”

— James Clavell

68. “For the last time: ‘The law may upset reason but reason may never upset the law, or our whole society will shred like an old tatami.”

— James Clavell

69. “Men don’t apologize to ladies. Whatever they do is correct.”

— James Clavell

70. “Sometimes it’s wiser to give a quarry extra line – that’s how to catch a fish, neh?”

— James Clavell

71. “The word of God surpasses earthly orders.”

— James Clavell

72. “Without terror how can the few rule the many?”

— James Clavell

73. “When a man’s pride is injured, death is a small price to repay the insult.”

— James Clavell

74. “Christianity is a religion. Not a political ideology.”

— James Clavell

75. “And yet you have faith in the King,” Father Donovan said quietly.”

— James Clavell

76. “Nothing is of more importance to the state than the quality of its spies. It is ten thousand times cheaper to pay the best spies lavishly than even a tiny army poorly.”

— James Clavell

77. “Toranaga eased his kimono and loincloth aside, as did Yabu. Together they urinated and mixed their urine and watched it dew the garden below.”

— James Clavell

78. “Then, alone once more, he split himself into the three persons that all generals of the Church must simultaneously be. First, the anointed Peter, first Bishop of Christ, with all that that spiritually implied. Second, the militant guardian of the Church temporal with all that that implied. And last, just a simple man who believed the teachings of a simple man who was the Son of God.”

— James Clavell

79. “Israel was a Stalin-Beria coup of monumental proportions! Who helped it, overt and covert, come into being? Who gave it immediate recognition? We did, and why?” Suslev belched again, “To cement into the guts of Arabia a perpetual cancer that will suppurate and destroy both sides and, along with them, bring down the industrial might of the West. Jew against Mohammedan against Christian.”

— James Clavell

80. “I’ve set myself against the sea all my life and I’ve always won. I always will.”

— James Clavell

81. “Isn’t it only laughter we can stay human?”

— James Clavell

82. “Why is she afraid?” he asked. “She’s not Anjin-san. Just a little nervous. Please excuse her. She’s never seen a foreigner close to before.” “Tell her when the moon’s full, barbarians sprout horns and fire comes out of our mouths like dragons.”

— James Clavell

83. “He took a deep breath of air. Once again he caught a strangeness on the wind, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, neither odor nor perfume – just strange, and curiously exciting. “Superintendent, what’s that smell? Casey noticed it too, the moment Sven opened the door.” Armstrong hesitated. Then he smiled. “That’s Hong Kong’s very own, Mr. Bartlett. It’s money.”

— James Clavell

84. “The Scots knew that the burning of a cross was a summons to the clan, and to all the kinsmen of all kindred clans: a summons to rally to the cross for battle. And the burning cross was raised only by the chief of the clan. By ancient law, once raised, the burning cross committed the clan to defend the land unto the end of the clan.”

— James Clavell

85. “Any history book will tell them China always crosses her borders to protect her buffer zones when any invader approaches.”

— James Clavell

86. “I can’t use hope against swords.”

— James Clavell

87. “You live by the lash and you’ll die by it.”

— James Clavell

88. “Secrets never leave you in peace, however much you wish or pray.”

— James Clavell

89. “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.”

— James Clavell

90. “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.”

— James Clavell

91. “Leave the problems of God to God and karma to karma. Today you’re here and nothing you can do will change that. Today you’re alive and here and honored, and blessed with good fortune. Look at this sunset, it’s beautiful, neh? This sunset exists. Tomorrow does not exist. There is only now. Please look. It is so beautiful and it will never happen ever again, never, not this sunset, never in all infinity. Lose.”

— James Clavell

92. “Malayan. It means ‘ashamed.’” He smiled to himself. It was a contraction of puki mahlu. Mahlu ashamed, puki a Golden Gulley. Malays grant feelings to that part of a woman: hunger, sadness, kindness, rapaciousness, hesitancy, shame, anger – anything and everything.”

— James Clavell

93. “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.”

— James Clavell

94. “You should talk to Ian about Cuba, old chap, that really gets him going. He says, and I agree, you lost. The Soviets sucked you into another trap. A fool’s mate. He believes they built their sites almost openly – wanting you to detect them and you did and then there was a lot of saber-rattling, the whole world’s frightened to death, and in exchange for the Soviet agreement to take the missiles out of Cuba your President tore up your Monroe Doctrine, the cornerstone of your whole security system.”

— James Clavell

95. “It is simple to catch a man, all you need to know is the right bait.”

— James Clavell

96. “You don’t know for certain about God until you’re dead.”

— James Clavell

97. “A lot of bull that’s worshipped as the be-all and end-all of existence. So much of ‘normal, civilized’ life is bull that you can’t imagine it. For us ex-Changi-ites – we’re lucky, we’re cleansed, we know what life is really all about. What frightens you, doesn’t frighten me, what frightens me, you’d laugh at.”

— James Clavell

98. “The British. We have proved beyond all doubt we’re to be trusted, we can govern, and, by and large, our bureaucracy’s incorruptible.”

— James Clavell

99. “Lust is pressing, something must be done about it.”

— James Clavell

100. “A new era requires clear thinking about the meaning of honor.”

— James Clavell