James Clavell

I write short stories. They may appear big in size, but when you consider it, they're four or five novels in one.

All stories have a beginning, a middle and an ending, and if they're any good, the ending is a beginning.

The more I know, the more sure I am I know so little. The eternal paradox.

The search for the truth is the most important work in the whole world — and the most dangerous.

These men too were criminals. Their crime was vast. They had lost a war. And they had lived.

To think good thoughts ... requires effort. This is one of the things that discipline — training — is about.

Only by living at the edge of death can you understand the indescribable joy of life.

What frightens you, doesn't frighten me, what frightens me, you'd laugh at.

Your daddy had to go back to school a little. He had some strangethoughts — and he wanted other grown-ups to believe them. It's not right for others to believe wrongthoughts, is it?

Wars are fought by teenagers, you realize that. They really ought to be fought by the politicians and old people who start these wars.

Now the sun touched the horizon and the man reined in his horse tiredly, glad that the time for prayer had come.