“If you're a sailor, best not know how to swim. Swimming only prolongs the inevitable—if the sea wants you and your time has come.”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“I'm saying that some men are saints. Some are happy being meek and humble and unambitious. Some men are born content to be second-best.”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“Gods are like people. They believe anything if you tell them right way.”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“I'll thank you to remember that not so many years ago men were burned at the stake just for saying the earth went round the sun!”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“If you smile when you lose, then you win in life.”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“So easy now that Elder Sister has explained to her what all young girls in houses are taught—that with care and meticulous acting and tears of pretended pain and fear, and the final modest telltale stains cautiously placed, a girl can, if necessary, be virgin ten times for ten different men.”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“all the people have a right to vote, and no single man ever controls the destiny of any nation, either by divine right or by right of stupid votes of a stupid electorate.”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“Godrot opium, he thought. But he knew that his life was inexorably tied to opium—and that without it neither The Noble House nor the British Empire could exist.”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“You live by the lash and you'll die by it.”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“Let's compete freely. Goddam tariffs! Free trade and free seas—that's what's right!”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“Если ты улыбаешься, проигрывая, тогда ты выиграешь в жизни.”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“Without trade the world will become what it was once—a hell where only the strongest arm and the heaviest lash was law. The meek will never inherit the earth. Aye, but at least they can be protected by law to live out their lives as they wish.”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“Only a real man has the right to stand at the pinnacle.”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“„Слава богу, че вече не съм толкова млад — помисли състрадателно Струан. — Сега знам, че любовта е като морето — понякога спокойна, а понякога бурна. Опасна е, красива, смъртоносна, животворна. Но никога постоянна, а променлива. И уникална само за един кратък миг в очите на времето.”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“Fallibility in a leader is very trying. Isn’t it? They spill so much of other people’s blood.”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“love is like the sea, sometimes calm and sometimes stormy; it’s dangerous, beautiful, death-dealing, life-giving. But never permanent, everchanging.”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“There can only be one Tai-Pan.”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“The Scots knew that the burning of a cross was a summons to the clan, and to all the kinsmen of all kindred clans: a summons to rally to the cross for battle. And the burning cross was raised only by the chief of the clan. By ancient law, once raised, the burning cross committed the clan to defend the land unto the end of the clan.”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“The time be gone forever when the like of me’s to suck thy arse ’cause of a poxy title which like as not were gifted first to a king’s whore, a king’s bastard, or buyed by knife in a king’s back.”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
“only the emperor among three hundred millions is allowed to use vermilion ink. Imagine that. If Queen Victoria said, ‘From now on, only I am allowed to use vermilion,’ as much as we love her, forty thousand Britons would instantly forswear all ink but vermilion. I would mysel’.”
― James Clavell, quote from Tai-Pan
James Clavell
Born place: in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Born date October 10, 1924
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“Una tipa que sonaba a borracha perdida cantaba ''Frankie and Johnny'' en versión marinera, con una voz que ni el whisky había logrado mejorar.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The High Window
“She seemed like a creature made to attract everyone and express nothing real, though it would take a master observer, like Magnus, to know it.”
― Cassandra Clare, quote from The Midnight Heir
“إذا كانت الأسئلة تخطر لي، فلابد لها من أجوبة.”
― Gioconda Belli, quote from Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand: A Novel of Adam and Eve
“WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.”
― Andrew Clements, quote from No Talking
“For the time being—”He emphasized each word. “I’ll be the only one climbing through your window.”
― Piper Shelly, quote from Play With Me
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