James Clavell Quotes

and damned nomads in Mesopotamia have again cut the telegraph — another expeditionary force is being organized to deal with them once and for all!

I put the candy on the desk. So you know, it doesn't matter who you shut your eyes and pray to — to God, or anyone, even our leader — no one will ever give you anything. Only another human being … only I, or someone like me, can give you things. Praying to God or anyone for something is a waste of time.

So much wealth and so much power, Armstrong thought, yet with a little luck, we can bring you down like Humpty-Dumpty...

Perhaps my mommy should go back to school. Perhaps she should.

Oare ce-s nourii
Daca nu o justificare a cerului?
Oare ce-i viata
Daca nu o amanare a mortii?

...by universal custom, your enemy is never more polite than when he is planning or has planned your destruction.

How beautiful life is and how sad! How fleeting, with no past and no future, only a limitless now.

Ronin were landless or masterless peasant-soldiers or samurai who, through dishonor or the loss of their masters, were forced to wander the land until some other lord would accept their services.

Your daddy had to go back to school a little. He had some strange thoughts — and he wanted other grown-ups to believe them. It's not right for others to believe wrong thoughts, is it?

Time has no single measure, that time can be like frost or lightning or a tear or siege or storm or sunset, or even a rock.

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!

All gods bear witness! The Jade Gate and the One-Eyed Monk are truly yin and yang, truly everlasting, truly godlike, both insatiable however much one consumes the other.

"What can I do to help thee?" he asked.
"Believe there is a tomorrow."

Like dew I was born
Like dew I vanish
..and all that I have ever done
Is but a dream
Within a dream

I can't use hope against swords.