“The way we react to the Indian will always remain this nation’s unique moral headache. It may seem a smaller problem than our Negro one, and less important, but many other sections of the world have had to grapple with slavery and its consequences. There’s no parallel for our treatment of the Indian. In Tasmania the English settlers solved the matter neatly by killing off every single Tasmanian, bagging the last one as late as 1910. Australia had tried to keep its aborigines permanently debased—much crueler than anything we did with our Indians. Brazil, about the same. Only in America did we show total confusion. One day we treated Indians as sovereign nations. Did you know that my relative Lost Eagle and Lincoln were photographed together as two heads of state? The next year we treated him as an uncivilized brute to be exterminated. And this dreadful dichotomy continues.”
― James A. Michener, quote from Centennial
“It took her three seconds-one, two, three-to know that her destiny required her to join this man, and his gun and his wagon, and his waiting horses. She had no conception of what was being asked of her, but she knew that there could be no viable alternative. She dashed inside the orphanage and grabbed the few things that belonged to her.”
― James A. Michener, quote from Centennial
“Where, indeed? Captain Vincent Reed had been born in the city of Richmond, Virginia, of northern parents who were stationed there by the telegraph company. He had attended West Point and he thought he knew something about warfare, having served under General Pope in his long and futile struggle against General Stonewall Jackson. Those men were fighters who would face the enemy till the last bullet was fired, but neither would participate in such a slaughter.
Reed had had his troops in position. He was quite prepared to rush in for the kill, and he had positioned himself so that he would be in the vanguard when his men made their charge against the guns of the young braves threatening the left flank. But when he saw that the enemy had no weapons, that even their bows and arrows were not at hand, and that he was supposed to chop down little girls and old women, he rebelled on the spot, taking counsel with no one but his own conscience.”
― James A. Michener, quote from Centennial
“At last he found the branching stream that flowed down from Blue Valley, and now he was guided by the little stone beaver that climbed the cliff.”
― James A. Michener, quote from Centennial
“Of all the men who were photographed that day, the chief’s life had come closest to the American ideal, closest in observing the principles on which this nation had been founded. He was immeasurably greater than Chester Arthur, the hack politician from New York, incomparably finer than Robert Lincoln, a niggardly man of no stature who inherited from his father only his name, and a better warrior, considering his troops and ordnance, than Phil Sheridan. His only close competitor was Senator Vest, who shared with him a love of land and a joy in seeing it used constructively.”
― James A. Michener, quote from Centennial
“It was rather that he discovered for himself the inherent undesirability of becoming a leader; it was an act of pomp engaged in by lesser men who enjoyed bedecking themselves in feathers. He would let others use office to proclaim their feats. He would concentrate on the feat itself, doing what had to be done … in silence.”
― James A. Michener, quote from Centennial
“It really set my nerves jangling,” Jenny Larsen confessed. “Wasn’t it strange, the way it kept up, day after day?” Alice Grebe, to whom this question was directed, said nothing, for”
― James A. Michener, quote from Centennial
James A. Michener
Born place: in New York, New York, The United States
Born date February 3, 1907
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“Odd, she thought, how intensely you knew a person, or thought you did, when you were in love - soaked, drenched in love - only to discover later that perhaps you didn't know that person quite as well as you had imagined. Or weren't quite as well known as you had hoped to be. In the beginning, a lover drank in every word and gesture and then tried to hold on to that intensity for as long as possible. But inevitable, if two people were together long enough, that intensity had to wane.”
― Anita Shreve, quote from The Pilot's Wife
“God, what if TMZ got hold of the truth about me? What a liar I am, I mean? What kind of role model am I? I make Vanessa Hudgens look like Mother Freaking Teresa. Minus the whole nudity thing. Because I'm not about to take naked photos of myself and send them to my boyfriend.”
― Meg Cabot, quote from Forever Princess
“For someone who's smarter than a supercomputer, sometimes you're a real idiot.”
― Gordon Korman, quote from One False Note
“I have no idea what you just said." I couldn't stop looking at her mouth. It was a little swollen, and I wanted to kiss her again and again, over and over until she couldn't breathe properly anymore. My libido had kicked into overdrive, and I was't having any problem imagining all the things I'd like to do.”
― Lacey Weatherford, quote from Crush
“But no. She didn't want to be Channary. She didn't want her beauty, not if it came with her cruelty and selfishness as well.”
― Marissa Meyer, quote from Fairest
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