1907-, American Writer
Although most of us know Vincent van Gogh in Arles and Paul Gauguin in Tahiti as if they were neighbors — somewhat disreputable but endlessly fascinating — none of us can name two French generals or department store owners of that period. I take enormous pride in considering myself an artist, one of the necessaries.
James A. Michener – [Writers and Writing]
An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.
James A. Michener – [Knowledge]
Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.
James A. Michener – [Character]
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.
James A. Michener – [Writers and Writing]
I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains.
James A. Michener – [Writers and Writing]
If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life.
James A. Michener – [Dignity]
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.
James A. Michener – [Excellence]