“The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.”
― James A. Michener, quote from The Drifters
“I can no longer take war or promotion or big income or a large house seriously. I reject empire and Vietnam and placing a man on the moon. I deny time payments and looking like the girl next door and church weddings and a great deal more. If you want to blame such rejection on grass, you can do so. I charge it to awakening.”
― James A. Michener, quote from The Drifters
“Don't put off what you can do today because if you enjoy it today you can do it again tomorrow.”
― James A. Michener, quote from The Drifters
“They’ll hear about your husband’s fortune. The suitors will begin to gather, and I want you to promise me this. Whenever one of them proposes, as they will, Doris must say rapturously, ‘Oh, David! All my life I’ve wanted to live in Israel.’ When he hears that she intends to live there instead of bringing him to the United States, you’ll see his interest evaporate. I said evaporate. It vanishes.” He waved his hands violently back and forth across his face to indicate total abolishment.”
― James A. Michener, quote from The Drifters
“The Arabs can lose every war, if only they win the last one.”
― James A. Michener, quote from The Drifters
“The Arabs can lose every war, if only they win the last one. The Jews have gained nothing if they win all the wars but lose the last one.”
― James A. Michener, quote from The Drifters
“Negroes were drafted, white men weren’t; the poor were hauled off to war, the rich weren’t; the stupid were shot at, the bright boys weren’t.”
― James A. Michener, quote from The Drifters
“A sensible man never brags about two things. How lovable his first wife was and how good his last school was.”
― James A. Michener, quote from The Drifters
“She was always pleased when a young man said “I can’t” rather than “I won’t,” because the former indicated a moral conviction that could not be set aside, whereas the latter implied mere personal preference without a solid footing.”
― James A. Michener, quote from The Drifters
“It's the good minds that find difficulty in committing themselves”
― James A. Michener, quote from The Drifters
“Tanks are nothing unless they’re kept moving. Because if you leave them static, a determined team can destroy them every time.”
― James A. Michener, quote from The Drifters
“In this country we get stuck with taxes, but in the old country we used to get stuck with bayonets.”
― James A. Michener, quote from The Drifters
James A. Michener
Born place: in New York, New York, The United States
Born date February 3, 1907
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“It ain’t the dead things you gotta be mindful of around here … it’s the living.”
― Robert Kirkman, quote from Rise of the Governor
“I prefer to play English characters. They have a knack for dying well. I have made my career superbly playing well-died Englishmen.”
― Dacre Stoker, quote from Dracula the Un-Dead
“Vi kastade oss in i vårt arbete och blev besatta av tanken på att dra upp ett ogräs till. Vi lade undan våra speglar. Vi slutade kamma håret. Vi struntade i smink. [...] Vi glömde bort Buddha, Vi glömde bort Gud. Vi utvecklade en köld inom oss som ännu inte har tinat upp. [...] Vi slutade skriva hem till våra mödrar. Vi gick ner i vikt och blev magra. Vi slutade blöda. Vi slutade drömma. Vi slutade längta. Vi bara arbetade, det var allt (s. 52-53).”
― Julie Otsuka, quote from The Buddha in the Attic
“Curiouser and curiouser!” Cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).”
― Lewis Carroll, quote from The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition
“Paris was a place where one wanted to walk, where to walk—flâner, as the French said—was practically a way of life. (“Ah! To wander over Paris!” wrote Honoré de Balzac. “What an adorable and delectable existence is that! Flânerie is a form of science, it is the gastronomy of the eye.”
― David McCullough, quote from The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris
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The Tiny Book of Tin...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.
