213 Quotes by James A. Michener

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.

Over a hundred German scientists arrived here [Huntsville] at eleven o’clock on an April morning and by nightfall more than sixty had applied for cards at the free library.

Rampaging horsemen can conquer; only the city can civilize.

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. [The World Is My Home (1991)]

Therefore, men of Polynesia and Boston and China and Mount Fuji and the barrios of the Philippines, do not come to these islands empty-handed, or craven in spirit, or afraid to starve. There is no food here. In these islands there is no certainty. Bring your own food, your own gods, your own flowers and fruits and concepts. For if you come without resources to these islands you will perish... On these harsh terms the islands waited.

What did I learn in my travels? In whatever foreign country I visited I met dreamers who longed to reach America and its promise of an enriched life so I knew we had a country rich in opportunity, but I also met those brilliant Jews already in America who had been denied that promise.

We seek God so earnestly, Eliav reflected, not to find Him but to discover ourselves.

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.