James A. Michener II

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

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

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

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.

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.

If your book doesn't keep you up nights when you are writing it, it won't keep anyone up nights reading it.

Writers turn dreams into print.

We are never prepared for what we expect.

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