Top 18 Quotes by James A. Michener

The arrogance of the artist is a very profound thing, and it fortifies you.

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

Scientists dream about doing great things. Engineers do them.

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

If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life.

There are no insoluble problems. Only time-consuming ones.

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

I think the crucial thing in the writing career is to find what you want to do and how you fit in. What somebody else does is of no concern whatever except as an interesting variation.

I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains.

For this is the journey that men and women make, to find themselves. If they fail in this, it doesn't matter much else what they find.