Quotes from Tai-Pan

“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

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Popular quotes

“Love? ... It's at the heart of every story.”
― Jessica Day George, quote from Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow

“When Warren was a little boy fingerprinting nuns and collecting bottle caps, he had no knowledge of what he would someday become. Yet as he rode his bike through Spring Valley, flinging papers day after day, and raced through the halls of The Westchester, pulse pounding, trying to make his deliveries on time, if you had asked him if he wanted to be the richest man on earth—with his whole heart, he would have said, Yes.
That passion had led him to study a universe of thousands of stocks. It made him burrow into libraries and basements for records nobody else troubled to get. He sat up nights studying hundreds of thousands of numbers that would glaze anyone else’s eyes. He read every word of several newspapers each morning and sucked down the Wall Street Journal like his morning Pepsi, then Coke. He dropped in on companies, spending hours talking about barrels with the woman who ran an outpost of Greif Bros. Cooperage or auto insurance with Lorimer Davidson. He read magazines like the Progressive Grocer to learn how to stock a meat department. He stuffed the backseat of his car with Moody’s Manuals and ledgers on his honeymoon. He spent months reading old newspapers dating back a century to learn the cycles of business, the history of Wall Street, the history of capitalism, the history of the modern corporation. He followed the world of politics intensely and recognized how it affected business. He analyzed economic statistics until he had a deep understanding of what they signified. Since childhood, he had read every biography he could find of people he admired, looking for the lessons he could learn from their lives. He attached himself to everyone who could help him and coattailed anyone he could find who was smart. He ruled out paying attention to almost anything but business—art, literature, science, travel, architecture—so that he could focus on his passion. He defined a circle of competence to avoid making mistakes. To limit risk he never used any significant amount of debt. He never stopped thinking about business: what made a good business, what made a bad business, how they competed, what made customers loyal to one versus another. He had an unusual way of turning problems around in his head, which gave him insights nobody else had. He developed a network of people who—for the sake of his friendship as well as his sagacity—not only helped him but also stayed out of his way when he wanted them to. In hard times or easy, he never stopped thinking about ways to make money. And all of this energy and intensity became the motor that powered his innate intelligence, temperament, and skills.”
― Alice Schroeder, quote from The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life

“Because it is done by a man who cannot afford to fail, one whose whole unique position depends upon the fact that all he does must succeed. A great brain and a huge organization have been turned to the extinction of one man. It is crushing the nut with the triphammer—an absurd extravagance of energy—but the nut is very effectually crushed all the same.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Valley of Fear

“The psychological and physiological mechanism of love is so complex that at a certain period in his life a young man must concentrate all his energy on coming to grips with it, and in this way he misses the actual content of the love: the woman he loves. (In this he is much like a young violinist who cannot concentrate on the emotional content of a piece until the technique required to play it comes automatically.)”
― Milan Kundera, quote from The Joke

“Also, said Freddie, I work nights to make a living and pay my way through college. You know what that’s like, Mr. McCourt. I don’t see what that has to do with your writing. Also, it’s not easy when you’re black in this society. Oh, Christ, Freddie. It’s not easy being anything in this society. All right. You want an A? You’ll get it. I don’t want to be accused of bigotry. No, I don’t want it just because you’re pissed off or because I’m black. I want it because I deserve it. I”
― Frank McCourt, quote from Teacher Man

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About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.