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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

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Things Are Going To

James A. Michener

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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.

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I Don’t Know Who My Parents Were. I Know Nothing About My Inheritance. I Could Be Jewish; I Could Be Part Negro; I Could Be Irish; I Could Be Russian. I Am Spiritually A Mix Anyway, But I Did Have A Solid Childhood Fortunately, Because Of Some Wonderful Women Who Brought Me Up. I Never Had A Father Or A Man In The House, And That Was A Loss...

Public Libraries Have Been A Mainstay Of My Life. They Represent An Individual's Right To Acquire Knowledge; They Are The Sinews That Bind Civilized Societies The World Over. Without Libraries, I Would Be A Pauper, Intellectually And Spiritually.

I Kept Careful Record Of The Impact Of Religion On The Election In My County. The Religious Issue Permeated Every Meeting I Conducted. It Influenced Republicans And Democrats Alike. Ministers Preached Politics Publicly And Churches Distributed The Most Vicious Electioneering Materials. Practically No One I Met Escaped The Pressure Of This Overriding Problem And Both Parties Were Ultimately Forced To Make Their Major Calculations With The Religious Question A Foremost Consideration.

A Poet Sees Things In Two Ways: First, As A Child Who Never Saw It Before, And Second, As A Dying Man Who Will Never See It Again.

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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.

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.

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.

[the Church's] Job Is To Provide Permanent Solace And Spiritual Leadership To The People As A Whole, Whatever Their Government At The Moment, So Long As It Stays Within The Bounds Of Moral Decency.

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The Job Of A Storyteller Is To Tell Stories, And I Have Concentrated On That Obligation.

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.

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.

Organizations Like The Church Or General Motors Promote A Man Up And Up Until He Reaches A Spot Which He Is Obviously Incapable Of Filling, And There They Lay Him To Rest.

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.

If You Reject The Food, Ignore The Customs, Fear The Religion And Avoid The People, You Might Better Stay Home.

It Takes Courage To Know When You Ought To Be Afraid.

Scientists Dream About Doing Great Things. Engineers Do Them.

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.

An Age Is Called Dark Not Because The Light Fails To Shine, But Because People Refuse To See It.

The Arrogance Of The Artist Is A Very Profound Thing, And It Fortifies You.

There Are No Insoluble Problems. Only Time-consuming Ones.

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.

I Am A Humanist Because I Think Humanity Can, With Constant Moral Guidance, Create Reasonably Decent Societies. I Think That Young People Who Want To Understand The World Can Profit From The Works Of Plato And Socrates, The Behaviour Of The Three Thomases, Aquinas, More And Jefferson - The Austere Analyses Of Immanuel Kant And The Political Leadership Of Abraham Lincoln And Franklin Roosevelt.

I Was Brought Up In The Great Tradition Of The Late Nineteenth Century: That A Writer Never Complains, Never Explains And Never Disdains.

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Creative Geniuses Are A Slap-happy Lot. Treat Them With Respect.

Don't Put Off For Tomorrow What You Can Do Today Because If You Enjoy It Today, You Can Do It Again Tomorrow.

Procrastination

It Was The Silent Time Before Dawn, Along The Shores Of What Had Been One Of The Most Beautiful Lakes In Southern Africa.

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.

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.

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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.

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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

Contrary To What People Think, I Slave Over My Books.

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If A Man Happens To Find Himself, He Has A Mansion Which He Can Inhabit With Dignity All The Days Of His Life.

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The Sense Of Belonging Is One Of The Great Gifts Men Get In Battle.

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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.

As A Writer I Have Persisted In My Uncertainty, Alternating Between Novels Which Could Charitably Be Considered Literature And World Reporting Which By Another Stretch Of Objective Standards Might Be Called History.

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If Your Book Doesn't Keep You Up Nights When You Are Writing It, It Won't Keep Anyone Up Nights Reading It.

A Group Of Two Dozen Nurses Completely Surrounded By 100,000 Unattached American Men.

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I'm Not A Very Good Writer, But I'm An Excellent Rewriter.

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Every Animal That Walks The Earth, Or Swims, Or Flies Is Precious Beyond Description, Something So Rare And Wonderful That It Equals The Stars Or The Ocean Or The Mind Of Man.

I Was Born To A Woman I Never Knew And Raised By Another Who Took In Orphans. I Do Not Know My Background, My Lineage, My Biological Or Cultural Heritage. But When I Meet Someone New, I Treat Them With Respect.... For After All, They Could Be My People.

If I Were A Young Man, I Would Not Hesitate At Writing Anything To Get Into Print, Except Pornography.

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...when Men Ignite In Their Hearts A Religious Fury, They Inflict At The Same Time A Blindness On Their Eyes.

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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.

The Most Sheer Fun I Ever Had In Sports Was Playing Volleyball, A Game I Commend Highly. I Understand That An Effort Is Under Way To Establish A National League Of Professional Volleyball Teams, And If You Have Ever Seen The Great Women's Teams Of Japan And Russia Or The Equally Good Men's Teams Of Cuba And East Germany, You Know How Exciting This Playground Game, Which Requires So Little Equipment, Can Be.

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.

We Should Be Most Careful About Retreating From The Specific Challenge Of Our Age. We Should Be Reluctant To Turn Our Back Upon The Frontier Of This Epoch... We Cannot Be Indifferent To Space, Because The Grand Slow March Of Our Intelligence Has Brought Us, In Our Generation, To A Point From Which We Can Explore And Understand And Utilize It. To Turn Back Now Would Be To Deny Our History, Our Capabilities.

The Decent Thing To Do Is To Get Rid Of Some Of This Money.

We Are Never Prepared For What We Expect.

In Six Pages, I Can't Even Say "hello.

Character Consists Of What You Do On The Third And Fourth Tries.

All I Can Do Is Play The Game The Way The Cards Fall.

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